As I pull out my clippers this year, my goals are modest: I’m not a horse clipping maestro, I’m an amateur who hopes for straight clean lines and a more comfortable horse.
But there are some real artists out there who inspire the rest of us to new heights. Melody Hames uses clippers as her brush and horses as her canvases. As “The Horse Barber” Hames started clipping her own pony at age nine when he developed Cushings. Now she creates custom masterpieces and gives demonstrations to teach others how to clip.
I’m not sure that I will ever have the skill or the artistic talent, but maybe this year I’ll try something more ambitious than a trace clip. Watch out, Zelda!
How does the DO that! And I learned to clip the same way she did…on Jordan, my grey arab Cushing’s gelding. I had to clip him four times a summer. The very first time I clipped him, I used the little hand clippers, the ones by Oster? HE was like a wooly mammoth and oh god, did I butcher him. It took me two days to get him all clipped and he looked like he’d been attacked by a starving horde of moths. He was so embarassed he wouldn’t come out of his run in shed for three days. The vet came by a day after I butchered that poor little horse and said, very diplomatically, Hmm, that’s an interesting clip job…
So I spent the money on the big ‘sheep’ shears and that made a huge difference. I got to be pretty good at clipping…not artistic, like the “horse barber” but good enough to take a big warmblood out of his winter jammies in a fairly short period of time, and a nice neat job..
I can do a trace clip that doesn’t make my horse feel ashamed, but I’m afraid I’ll never be artistic. I enjoy seeing what more talented people can accomplish.