I recently saw a WB for sale in Europe listed as wearing a fake tail in much the same manner that sweet itch or cribbing must be mentioned.
But no - I’d never heard of fake tails either till I moved to the USA. The average horse here has a sort of scraggly tail end that hits the fetlocks - banging 6” below the hock is unheard of IMEX - and then a massive fake tail usually made from slaughtered horses is tied on and they look really weird in person (to a Brit!) because they move oddly.
Thank you. That doesn’t look fake to me. A lot of chestnuts have a darker tail and the wispy bits are found in most tails as new hair grows. If it were a fake, I think they would have done a better job!
Thank you. The fake tail is obvious in both those horses. The extreme fullness around the fetlocks is particularly noticable.
Maybe the fashion started in QH world? The breed used to be notorious for thin little tails but today they all seem to be long and full at shows.
When I was a kid I attended many QH shows. The style then was to pull and trim the tails of the halter horses significantly. You wanted the tail to lie down between the butt cheeks to show off the butt and the tail often tapered toward the end, ending at about the hocks, so as not to obscure that butt! The performance horses wore more natural tails. The only “big hair” QHs I saw were reiners.
After quite a few years away, I again went to a QH show. I was shocked to see the huge fake tails on almost all the horses!
My hunter/dressage/western dressage horse wears a fake tail for all three! The dressage tails are a little shorter and you braid them at the base like a hunter tail. My horse has a huge, thick tail naturally which covers the tied in tail for dressage but it’s not as thick at the bottom, so the fake banged tail buttons up the overall look. When he lifts or swishes his tail it looks just like any other tail. We only use it for dressage as his tail shape tapers at the bottom and we cannot achieve the banged look unless we cut it, and since he’s a hunter also that is not an option.
If we ever end up at a show together I’ll show you how we tie them in for Dressage. You can bring the scones and Devon cream and I’ll make some cocktails to go along with it. We can call it a lunch and learn!
Fake tails make the horses look deeper hocked. Additionally, weighted tails hide a busy tail. It was really done for the betterment of the horse to move away from tail jobs. You still see dead tails, but just not as many as before.
Yes. The video I tried to share did not load. So I deleted. Usually you can best see this in videos over the jumps as the tail separates. They don’t use the huge stock horse type two pound tails but I have noticed the tails moving unnaturally between the back legs. Natural tails just don’t move that way.
I had a barn friend whose hunter mare came with a tail when she bought her. Not sure what happened to it but it was pathetically sparse. Think the tail was 1/2#. Not enough real tail to use more. It was tapered at the bottom. Looked real. Nice horse.
Hopefully, that uploads. The Belgian WB with his fresh do. Ended up a bit too short as I lacked someone to stick their arm under to hold it up. Dude has obnoxiously good hair. Lol.
And with my child, who also has obnoxiously good hair. Must’ve come from her dad’s side, because I have baby fine hair that breaks off once it gets to a certain length. Meanwhile, she’s all, “Mom, I need a haircut because my hair won’t fit in a hair net anymore & my helmet is cutting off the circulation to my brain
.”
Your fake tail shouldn’t be banged. If it is, it is the wrong tail.
Every one I’ve ever seen appears to be, though. And these aren’t low rent horses I’m talking about either.
Plenty of horses show now in banged (blunt) fake tails. Mine do, and thinking of all the horses at the barn, I can only think of one horse with a tapered fake. If it’s good enough for Heritage and North Run, it’s good enough for me: https://www.instagram.com/p/COIlr8NpWAE/ https://www.instagram.com/p/CHrFyM-HkKW/
Yup. That’s what I’m used to seeing. And I’m not trying to be offensive to Midge, who makes fake tails, iirc. Simply stating that in my area – which is not exactly a little podunk where show hunters are concerned – the vast majority of fake tails are blunt at the bottom. Maybe banged is the wrong word to describe it? It is just how I’ve always heard others describe a tail that is trimmed across the bottom slightly shorter than the natural length to remove the damaged ends.
I have never been asked to make a banged tail. I have tails up and down the east coast, and the woman who taught me to make them is the ‘go to’ for fake tails and has made hundreds a year for years. None of these are banged. We have a private braider page on Facebook and when people have tails for sale, they are not banged.
Clearly people use banged tails. If they are happy, great.
Years ago (25?) a friend who’s a trainer bought a dressage horse in Europe to import and resell in the US. Horse showed up with a very skimpy tail—both short and thin. He went back and looked at the video from when he tried it and horse had a nice tail. The seller admitted to using a fake tail. Horse sold easily as it was a saintly FEI schoolmaster.
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