We have a couple lovely young mares that will do Sallie B. Wheeler in August. The kicker though is that they’re primarily dressage horses and will be doing Dressage at Devon a month later. Meaning, we really can’t pull their manes to ideal hunter braiding length because we then lose the ability to do a good dressage knot. We’ll shorten some, of course, but would love to hear any advice for fitting a lot of hair into a hunter mane. I’m the braider - obviously wouldn’t ask this of anyone else since it’ll be challenging and frankly might be unrealistic - but, hit me. I want alllll of your braiding secrets to help pull this off. TIA!
I admit ignorance of the length required for braiding a Dressage knot.
Is there any possibility you could do a Running braid with the length you need?
I do this with my VSE’s trolldoll mane to make it presentable for shows. Unbraided it falls to his shoulder & is thickthickthick!
For show:
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I’d reach out to a professional braider for their advice-- check with a good sized H/J program in your area for who they use to braid. They can help you. It’s definitely a dilemma. You might need to go a bit short for dressage buttons and a bit too long for hunter braids.
Running braid will not fly in breeding classes at that level.
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Are these horses doing in-hand only or ridden? Either way, the dressage side of things won’t really care that much if they are smaller than normal braids or more braids than usual.
I used to show rated dressage and regional champs with like 30 braids that were hybrid between buttons and hunter without the bump.
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This was my thought too.
If the braiding type matters for your in-hand classes then pull and do the appropriate braids for that and do your best, ending up with more smaller braids, for the dressage show.
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I would pull short and add extra yarn for button braids if need be.
ETA: if you braid up for your button braids, they will look fuller, too.
ETA (again): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apSkC9LAoVE <-- i do something like this but with yarn. I’ve used human extensions before, too.
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