I have a foal going to an inspection in a couple of weeks and am curious as to how/where others clip a foal for inspection. When I attended my last inspection 3 years ago I clipped my filly’s whiskers, a little bit of bridle path (just where the halter goes), and her ears, and the inspector was less than pleased that I had clipped her whiskers. Also, do you clip mare whiskers?
TIA.
Even when I body clipped my filly recently for her GOV insp I left her whiskers. Didn’t do whiskers on her dam either.
we have in past body clipped if they still had the woolies, this year we are lucky and all shed out. We only clip bridle paths… never any whiskers.
I must be missing something…why not clip whiskers?
I must be missing something ! Why would anyone BODY clip the foal in the first place ? I think this is ridiculous…so do the judges.
They can judge perfectly fine even through the thickest of coats. Don’t body clip your foal for a 5 minute presentation people…comohn !
This ^ Bathe the foal and braid the mane. They need their whiskers out in the pasture.
[QUOTE=Tiki;5759158]
This ^ Bathe the foal and braid the mane. They need their whiskers out in the pasture.[/QUOTE]
Exactly!!
I body clipped my filly months ago because it has been a zillion degrees. I was planning on clipping the whiskers because I like the look better without but that is negotiable. The mare unfortunately is a burnt butterscotch color instead of her normal black due to the sun but there isn’t much I can do about that.
I would not ever leave long goatees on my foals for showing, sorry. Nuh uh. http://sports.webshots.com/photo/2123057980046770113enOwBv That is SO much neater… and my guy survived just fine “in the wild” without his whiskers, lol.
Now i gotta go scroll through this year’s Devon and Warrenton pics to see if everyone’s foals had bushy muzzles. 'Scuse me.
I’m with Bayhawk, though, the idea of bodyclipping a foal seems kinda excessive…
Remember an inspection is NOT a show! They want to see the natural coat and don’t care if they are in the middle of shedding out. Clean them, white markings should be white, manes braided to show the neck and that’s all they care about. I never clip a foal for an inspection.
Not when you live in the heat and humidity that some of us do. That is more of a reason to body clip than for a show or an inspection…and the reason why many around here body clip.
There is no more heat and humidity in PA than there is in VA. They have their foal coats for a reason. Clipping a foal is frowned upon by every judge I have ever met and is not fair to the foal. That coat helps with sun burn , bug bites and everything else. No wonder the Europeans look at us sideways when they come here to inspect our horses.
Keep on clipping those foals…you are doing nothing but highlighting their faults.
I clipped all of my foals this June for health reasons. They all had tremendously long baby coats and we were having record high temps. They all felt obviously better without the fur after the job was done.
Clipping the foals was a non-event. I didn’t even need to put halters on them to get the job done. If anything, many seemed to enjoy what felt like a massage. I did not do legs or whiskers.
I had never clipped any foals before this and have presented plenty of fuzzy ones at inspection with good results. My clipping them this year was strictly for the comfort and health. It went so well though that I will probably routinely get the baby fuzz off next year when the weather turns hot. I don’t see any reason not to.
[QUOTE=Home Again Farm;5759596]
I clipped all of my foals this June for health reasons. They all had tremendously long baby coats and we were having record high temps. They all felt obviously better without the fur after the job was done.
Clipping the foals was a non-event. I didn’t even need to put halters on them to get the job done. If anything, many seemed to enjoy what felt like a massage. I did not do legs or whiskers.
I had never clipped any foals before this and have presented plenty of fuzzy ones at inspection with good results. My clipping them this year was strictly for the comfort and health. It went so well though that I will probably routinely get the baby fuzz off next year when the weather turns hot. I don’t see any reason not to.[/QUOTE]
I see this as a valid reason seeing as where you live , but to do it just for an inspection is ridiculous. Our AHHA inspections are in Sept. and Oct. so clipping a foal for that would be crazy as you would then ave to blanket that foal all winter.
And I know people in VA who clip too. I’m sorry but when they haven’t shedded out and it has the heat index in the 100s for multiple days some of them may need to be clipped…or at least seem to do better clipped. It then also has the added benefit of exposing them to clipping at a young easy to handle age so it isn’t a tramatic thing when they are competition horses.
To each his own. Europe does NOT have the same weather as we do and nor do all of them practice what I would consider great horsemanship (little to no turn out etc). So do…some don’t so I reallly could care less as we live in very different climates.
Our inspections are in August so yeah…most of the foals at the inspection I went to were body clipped…but they hadn’t been clipped just for the inspection. And it certainly didn’t hurt the scores on most of the foals that I saw.
This is one point I think reasonable minds can disagree.
Inspections are our BIG event of the year for the farm. We do all of our marketing pictures and video that day/weekend also. We hire helpers, braiders, photographers, and the provided handler. So we treat it like a real horse show. Horses are so clean you could eat of of them and we go as far as to polish hooves, goop around the eyes, ears, and muzzle and body shine.
As far as clipping, we never do the body…if they are too fuzzy we start our bathing and brushing a month early to try and get rid of as much as possible. We never touch the legs but the WBs don’t usually need it. I don’t do the bridle path because I don’t want to have to mantain it in the following months if a buyer comes for a visit and the hair is so thin it isn’t neccessary…but that is for babies. Yearlings and older get the bridle path done. Now we do do the beard, whiskers, and any extra ear fuzzies so that our head shots look good.
Mares get the full works as if going to a show. Pulled manes and braided, bridle paths, whiskers, ears, beard, any extra leg hair…never had to body clip.
Our horses are pretty pampered and we are a small enough farm to accomodate even the smallest discomforts on each horse…so we are OK with the whiskers being gone for a month or so.
As I said…it is more for the marketing pics and video than the inspection though. It is the only time of year that they get perfectly clean and off farm so we have to take advantage!
I think the biggest thing that matters is that the mare and foal are very clean, braided, and handled enough to not be too dangerous or wild. everything else is just a matter of preference.
My filly has rather impressive ear hair–nice big tufts sticking out–is it acceptable to neaten that up for inspection? I don’t shave all the hair out of ears, just the fold like a taco and trim what sticks out.
She also has a couple random little clipped spots where I was experimenting with her clipper tolerance…
“Bayhawk
Advanced
There is no more heat and humidity in PA than there is in VA. They have their foal coats for a reason. Clipping a foal is frowned upon by every judge I have ever met and is not fair to the foal. That coat helps with sun burn , bug bites and everything else. No wonder the Europeans look at us sideways when they come here to inspect our horses.”
SO TRUE
I was just at inspection this year recently and we had 16 some foals with their dams. Not one clipped anywhere and most in some stage of shedding. The inspector made a comment about how nice it was to come to a place where the babies were “natural” and not american-ized and dolled up like barbie dolls. We had bathed mares, brushed manes and tails on them as well but babies were all with full whiskers and coats. The top placing colt and filly looked like molting sheep but the inspector was not blind!
I get cleaning up more for the 2 and 3 year old inspections but this inspector was not going to be fooled by braids, hood polish, clipped whiskers… A Quality is a quality foal so just present them the way GOD made your weanling
regarding clipping… A copy and paste from KWPN
All young horses are evaluated individually within their breeding direction.
It is important foals are pre- pared for the inspection and be familiar with the halter, be able to walk properly on a lead and be catchable. Foal
classes are scheduled according to age, from youngest to oldest. The jury prefers to see foals at the side of the mare. Weaned foals are shown in-hand only. Clipping of the body and face is discouraged
[QUOTE=amastrike;5759741]
My filly has rather impressive ear hair–nice big tufts sticking out–is it acceptable to neaten that up for inspection? I don’t shave all the hair out of ears, just the fold like a taco and trim what sticks out.
She also has a couple random little clipped spots where I was experimenting with her clipper tolerance…[/QUOTE]
I did very minimal–just some neatness stuff. I trimmed just the bit that was sticking out (like you are saying–the tufts–not the inner ear stuff). I also neatened up the billy goat jowl, but I left all the whiskers. I did trim the long, bleached ankle feathers under the coronet with a little scissors too.
We are talking 5 minutes, but it did make her look a lot better for pictures than she did before.
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