Horse Care

All the horse grooming products you need for daily grooming, competition days, and to enhance well-being. Pamper your horse with our range of grooming brushes, natural skin care, shampoos, and daily essentials for perfect turnout.

What is Horse Grooming?

Horse grooming is the process of cleaning and caring for your horse. Brushing the coat in the direction that the hair lies will remove excess mud, dust, and dander. Regular grooming will encourage healthy skin and fur, and this will create a soft, well cared for coat. Not only is horse grooming important for the health and care of your horse, it’s also an important bonding exercise between you and your horse. There are lots of different ways to groom a horse, all dependant on the requirements of your horse, or the activities you’ll be doing together.

How to Groom Your Horse

Part of the daily routine of keeping a horse is the grooming. We’ve written a complete guide on this in our blog, but here are the highlights:

• Start with the feet. Pick out hooves and brush the hoof walls clean. Check for any nasty smells or problems with the hoof itself. If all is well, moisturise or polish the hooves with Hoof Shine - this contains Beeswax and repels too much moisture as well as conditions and strengthens the hooves.
• If your horse is muddy and has thick hair, use a coarse brush first. For sensitive or fine coated horses, use the Super Groomer to remove thick mud. The next stage is to go over the entire horse’s body with a medium grade of brush such as the Borstiq Mex Fibre. This brush with its natural fibre bristles will really get into the hair.  Then move onto a closer bristled brush such as a traditional Body Brush.  With this brush you will be able to groom even further into the coat but remember to clean your brush every other stroke with a metal curry comb.  Whilst going through the grooming routine, you will be able feel for any lumps or bumps or new injuries.   Moving on to the head and sensitive areas, use a soft brush, such as a Goat Hair.  This is a super soft natural grooming brush and will give a gentle feel to the vulnerable areas as well as being an enjoying part of the grooming process.  For the final finish to the body area, use the Borstiq Mex Soft or Borstiq Soft Finishing Brush, these will polish the fur to give a soft sheen.  Use a damp cloth for wiping over the eyes and nose and under the tail.  For added condition and shine, spray in Coat Sheen and polish in with our Black fleece mitt.  For a high show shine finish use Gloss n Go and polish in with the fleece mitt.
• Groom the mane and tail with either a comb or brush depending on thickness. Applying a conditioning and de-tangling spray such as Xtreme Detangle will keep manes and tails in tip top condition as well as making it quick and easy to brush through each day.

How to Groom Your Horse for Shows and Events

When you’re off to a show or event your daily grooming routine can go one step further. It’s likely you’ll need to start with washing or bathing your horse, and if you have a grey or white horse you may be thinking about whitening or stain removal. The key difference between everyday grooming and grooming your horse for shows and events is the level of turnout. Perfect turnout for shows includes a high level of shine with the horse looking their absolute best, and most likely a plaited mane and tail as well. We’ve put lots of handy hints and tips here in our blog so be sure to have a look.

What are Horse Brushes?

When you groom your horse, you'll be using different types of horse brushes. Horse brushes are an essential part of your horse’s grooming kit. Horse brushes come in all shapes, sizes, types, and grades of bristle, making the choice very varied. A horse brush should be used daily to groom the coat of a horse, whether it's clipped, in a summer coat, or in their natural thick winter woollies.

What is the Best Horse Brush to Buy for my Horse?

Choosing the best horse brush, or horse brush set, will vary depending on what type of horse you have, whether its stabled, grass kept, or a combination. It will also depend on your preference to the size and type of brush and whether you prefer traditional, eco-friendly, wooden backed horse brushes with natural bristles, or the plastic, coloured options with polypropylene bristles.

Why do we Think Borstiq Horse Brushes are the Best for Your Horse?

The Borstiq Horse Brush range is available individually or grouped together and presented in a Horse Brush Kit format, making the Borstiq Range of brushes particularly suitable for gifting. The coarsest brush in the range is made from the natural fibre Bassine, this is a coarse bristled fibre and ideal for winter use when there is more mud about. The Mex Fibre and Bassine fibre bristles are both within the medium horse grooming range and are ideal for everyday use. The soft horsehair and goat hair brushes are perfect for finishing, sensitive areas, heads and for the summer and clipped coats as a final finish.

Borstiq Farm, based in Sweden, have cleverly designed the shape of the brushes for both small and larger grips. The Borstiq Banana range of horse brushes have a narrower hold and are lighter, being suited for the smaller hand and wrist. The Borstiq Shaped range of brushes are contoured to accommodate a larger grip, but still comfortable for most hand sizes.

The Borstiq range of horse grooming brushes are highly desirable and collectable and within each range there is a variation on the choice of bristles. Finished with a solid hardwood back with the oval Borstiq logo featured, they make outstanding gifts all through the year, as well as providing an exceptional grooming experience for your horse.

Types of Horse Brushes

Flick Brushes

A flick brush for a horse is a very effective and useful tool for removing dust and dander. Flick brushes are very distinctive for their long bristles, much longer than a body brush. It’s these long bristles that make the brush so effective, penetrating right to the base of the coat. The long bristles encourage a flicking action which sends dried mud, dust and dander flying away from the horse. Very satisfying!

Flick brushes come in a variety of bristle types, so select the right one for your horse, and the stage of grooming you’d like to use it for. Softer, finer bristles are suitable for thinner skinned horses with less coat.

Dandy Brushes

Dandy brushes are traditionally made with medium length coarse bristles for removing dried on mud from longer hair. They are perfect to use on thick winter coats to remove mud and other dirt and grease, or for brushing out feathers and muddy heels. You may be able to use these on cobs and natives all year round, but this type of brush is too coarse for clipped coats, or fine skinned horses.

Body Brushes

The body brush is a hardworking all-rounder. Typically, a body brush is characterised by short, densely packed bristles. It can be used all over the horse, but it’s characterised by its ability to remove grease and dander from horse hair. You’ll need to use a flick or dandy brush first to remove the majority of the mud, and then the body brush really comes into its own. Use in conjunction with a curry comb to keep the body brush clean, and you’ll get some serious shine into your horse’s coat in no time.

Finishing Brushes

Finishing brushes are typically made from very soft bristles. They are not designed for cleaning the coat, but rather for polishing. Used at the end of a grooming routine a finishing brush will bring out the shine of your horse’s coat, leaving them gleaming.