From a young age I mess with the horses’ manes and tails, brushing, plaiting and pulling them about so that by the time they’re old enough to show they’ll be used to it and hopefully won’t protest and misbehave.
You can see from the first couple of photographs that Boston is wondering what I’m doing, however he soon realises that I’m causing no harm and lets me get on with plaiting his tail. At first I just create a loose plait, this allows him to get the feel of me pulling on his tail and get used to me standing behind him for long periods of time.
With practice these plaits become tighter and more secure, and also I’m able to plait further down the tail, with the aim being to plait right to the bottom of the dock. Once the foal is happy with me plaiting their tail I then turn my attention to the mane. This takes much more patience, accuracy and concentration as the mane not only needs to be plaited but the flights and mane roll / wool need to be incorporated together. It’s fiddly and time consuming and doesn’t help if you have a fidgety or badly behaved horse.
I’ve been plaiting horses for shows for the past 10 years and am still learning tricks and tips to make the plaits tighter, the flights stand up straighter and overall appearance much more presentable – you never stop learning where horses are concerned.