Wednesday, August 31, 2016

The Art of Clipping



I have a show this upcoming weekend, so I am been trying to put off everything as long as possible.

I am a Class A Procrastinator. 

However, I have some pretty awesome friends.  One awesome friend volunteered to come over and help me clip the Semi Feral Filly (ahem--mare) which is major show task #1.



Now Chili has been clipped plenty of times.  But she doesn't enjoy some of the process, especially on her face and ears.  It used to require liberal amounts of Dorm, a twitch, and someone holding her to get things done. 

Fortunately, we have progressed past that point.  I did her bridlepath and feet without much fuss.  She then decided that whiskers were the devil, but after a momentary fuss she was good there.



Ears are always the worst part, but awesome friend had a twitch, because while I probably own every piece of horse equipment known to man-kind, I have no idea where my twitch is.  So Friend twitched her while I went for the ear.  Left ear was fine, right ear was a lot more fussing. 



Clipping Arabians requires some fancy face clipping.  The main goal is to clip a triangle to accentuate the shape of the horse's head.  If you are a skilled clipper, there is lots of blending to be done to essentially make the horse look like one fancy beast.


Well, I am not quite so skilled, but I did semi-accomplish a triangle that was mostly triangle shaped.  I don't go too crazy with the clipping since I dabble in the dressage ring, but I do think it is nice to accentuate some of the Arabian shape, plus I have to learn somehow.  ;) 

Who doesn't want to learn on their clipping shy, red hot chestnut mare?

After clipping, Chili was thoroughly sweaty, so she received a bath.  I couldn't resist throwing her out in the pasture and taking a couple of photos.

So what's the verdict?  Does my clipping pass the muster this time around?  It is certainly a work in progress.

3 comments:

  1. I'm so lazy when it comes to clipping for shows. I clip fetlocks, muzzles and bridlepaths, but just trim up the outsides of the ears... and that's it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. She is such a beauty 😍😍😍😍

    I don't show my monsters sp really only clip for autumn/winter riding as they are two hairy/wolly mammoths.

    I am probably being all kinds of stupid, but where do you clip the triangle on the head? How does it accentuate the shape? 😶

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Not a stupid question at all. Maybe I should have a full blog post on it in the future.

      It is basically a diamond shape between the eyes pointing up between the ears and down towards the nose. It helps accentuate the width of the forehead, since Arabians should have prominent eyes and a wide set forehead.

      Clipping around the eyes (carefully) should make the skin look a little finer and accentuate the eye, along the lines of eyeliner.

      Here is the start of someone else's diamond.

      https://theshowgroom.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/dsc009291.jpg?w=414&h=313

      Delete

Please leave a comment if you like. I love hearing from readers and would like to know that I am not always talking to myself. ;)