Advance show prep

After last week's braiding attempt, I turned to Google for some ideas and tutorials. The most helpful one I found was here. Not only were the instructions for braiding clear, but she also shared her secret for an all-day French braid, plus an important tip: Braid and ride before a show, as some horses may be bothered by things feeling different. I figured Lance might be such a horse, because he seems to care about the where of his hair.

So today I did a quick and dirty French braid (sans yarn ties), then schooled the boy.

Freshly braided and ready to tack up

Mounted and ready to start schooling

At the end of our schooling session

After schooling, with the sun behind a cloud

Lance didn't seem bothered by his new hairdo in the least. As you can see, there was some loosening, but I doubt it would be noticeable from the judge's stand. I need to tweak my technique just a bit and will take more care when doing this for shows, but am basically happy with this method of braiding. It's fast, and lets Lance keep his beautiful mane! His forelock will be the problem area; I might have to muzzle him to get that bit done. :-/

After riding I decided to take advantage of the partial sunshine and give Lance a shower. I left his braid in so I could clean his neck thoroughly, then loosened it and took him out into the pasture to enjoy some fresh spring grass while drip-drying.

His suspensory injury rarely crosses my mind these days, but the shaved area (so Rick could do the final ultrasound check) really stood out today after his shower. I hope we never need to shave that – or any other – area again!