There’s a trend right now of cosmetologists really pushing for people to only wash their hair once or twice a week.
I’m sitting here like - you want me to lay my head down on my pillow after feeding horses, working on a farm, and riding in the 95°F+ heat, without washing my hair?? Ew. Ew. No.
I only use shampoo on my bay mare before clipping, so once or twice per year. She gets rinsed with just water after almost every ride all year round (Florida).
Well, it’s not a new trend, and I’m sure it’s good for hair and scalp…but for most people (and dogs, and horses), a bit of soap and water doesn’t do any harm. I’ve been shampooing my hair most of my life and have managed to survive and still look decent and not be smelly. 
My horse is 16 and has never had a bath with soap. I sponge her off if it is hot, she is sweaty after a ride etc…
She is very clean and a good rain really keeps her shining and white ( her main color minus spots)
Once or twice a year unless showing. I spray against the grain to the fur to get sweat and dirt out. I use combined shampoo and conditioner mostly (Head and Shoulders). Tail I’ll add extra conditioner for a show. Happily use chlorhexadine with antifungal for leg crud when needed.
Totally common in just about every BNT barn I have worked at, if they sweat they get hosed and scrubbed down. Also totally common at the track as well.
How often do I wash with soap my horse? Uh… probably once a year, and that’s only the day before a show. My horses live out 24/7 and I try to avoid shampooing because they are always much more bothered by flies after a bath. My guys stay very clean, even with rolling – probably because they can roll in dirt and clay/sand and not be rolling on top of their own pee or manure like a horse rolling in a stall would. I actually never have to bathe because they are dirty, and I own Pig Pen and his buddies.
If my horse worked hard enough for a full-body sweat, I might brace with vetrolin - always make sure to fully rinse the sweat out of their coat, it bleaches!
They get curried daily, I’m a big believer that this makes a difference in their coat.
Hardly ever. I have a white horse even but we have no proper wash stall at my barn and no hot water. Bathing her, even in 90 degree summer heat in cold well water…well lets just say she gets just a bit amped up. I do wash her lovely tail w/shampoo and conditioner once a month or so in the warmer months then put it in a tail bag in the wintertime.
I do sponge off the sweaty parts in the summer but with just water. And like IPEsq, if she happened to lay in a pee puddle, that gets washed off as I about suffocate from the fumes if I don’t. Luckily she has a large pen and doesn’t do that too often.
Susan
I’ll bathe with soap maybe once or twice a year. She’s black and we don’t show, so there’s really no need to do anything besides hose her down after a sweaty workout. It’s just not worth the effort for me since she smells fine and she will just roll in the dust after I bathe her anyway.
My qualified comments:
That being said, I rarely use soap on my horse. In the summer, I tend to use a Vetrolin (liniment) rinse (a couple of squirts of vetrolin liniment in 5 gal water) after hosing with warm water. That keeps him pretty clean. It seems to help with his massive pee stain and It doesn’t seem to dry his coat. Maybe 2 or 3 times a year I’ll break out the Orvis and Quik Silver to him and try to get him sparkly white, especially before I bundle him up in blankets for the winter (last bath of the year). But I know it’s only going to last until he lies down again.
Right now, he’s not had a bath since early fall (missed the window for the fall bath) but he still looks pretty good. I tend do do a fairly deep clean when I groom, and he’s in rehab so he’s not working up much of a sweat yet. So far the pee and poop stains generally wash out with a rinse (no soap, no vetrolin, just hand scrubbing)
I think you would get different answers in a different forum. I bathe my horses before a show, usually once to twice a month in the summer and fall. If I’m riding and they get sweaty then I hose them off with plain water. If they have worked very hard I might use liniment
I saw a very strict lesson barn that required lesson horses to be put away with no sweat or tack marks and detailed instructions for a hose down, including sponging the face and towel drying the legs then hand grazing. I think the omtowel drying probably helps with leg fungus.
Whenever I want to get good pictures of my horse so like once or twice a year!
Bigtime!
All my greys were stallions, and they keep themselves really clean. I only ever had to bathe the last one once, at his first competition. People used to remark on how sparkling he was, and that I’d probably had to work hard to get him that way, but honestly I only groomed him well. When I was grooming internationally (dressage) we were not allowed to shampoo anything but white manes and tails, and socks. The horses were bathed with clear water after hot works, but never with shampoo. I haven’t bathed with shampoo in more than 16 years, despite competing through GP.
Well I feel a LOT better about the limited number of times I’ve bathed my mare! It doesn’t help that she absolutely despises the wash stall and the hose so a bath is quite a production 
Weirdly, the few times I have bathed her, she’s ended up looking dirtier than when I began. Like the bathing just brought MORE dirt to the surface of her coat that then didn’t/wouldn’t wash off (despite SO MUCH rinsing) 
A couple times a year when Miss Mare seems to be particularly dirty, I’ll wash with shampoo (human shampoo that did not make the cut on my hair). She lives out 24/7, no blanketing, no riding. Every several months I finally get tired of her pink skin looking black from dirt and give her a big bubble bath. Shampoo helps cut through all the weird grime and dirt that they get on them.
The rest of the year she just gets hosed off if needed (summer-spring). It gets really hot here so sometimes she’ll come in really sweaty, so I’ll hose her off to keep the sweat from sticking in her coat.
Tips on how to get top of their butt clean? No matter how much I scrub and rinse that spot, when horse dries there is still dust under the hair.
I can often do better just plain grooming, with a mad curry and rub cloth, but sometimes it is just a battle that can’t be one. I have always assumed this is b/c this area gets such great contact when they roll.
In answer to OP’s question, I rarely wash with shampoo. Usually only before our student show or an event like a photo shoot or my parents visiting. I do hose down if she is sweaty and weather permits it.
My sense is that when you have endless dust you are dealing with dandruff. The skin just keeps flaking. It can be very localized. I know what you mean about the top of the tail.
My mare has great skin and coat, very shiny. But some springs when she is shedding I do see a bit of that endless dust on her neck and body. I think she sheds skin as well as hair. It’s too early in the year for a bath. She doesnt have that dust in full winter fur or on summer pasture coated in mud that just brushes out.
I found that when I washed with soap, the hair got fluffy and dull. If I curry and brush on a regular basis and just give a deep rinse, the hair is much shinier. I only wash tails with soap and then put on conditioner.
I hose my dude off whenever he gets sweaty unless it’s too cold (we do have hot water at the barn though, thankfully).
He’s an itchy guy (appaloosa with a myriad of skin weirdness) in the summer, so I will routinely wash him with EQyss Micro-Tek shampoo all over maybe once every few weeks. It really seems to help soothe his skin and coat…he genuinely seems to love his bath and it leaves him shiny and happy.
Other than that, I use EQyss Premier shampoo on his mane and tail (and sometimes socks) whenever I feel like they need it (usually every other time he gets a Micro-Tek bath).
I brush him daily: rubber curry all over (oh the faces he pulls…he loves it), medium dandy brush all over, then super soft body brush all over. He gets Micro-Tek spray on legs and belly if he’s gotten too itchy/bumpy/scabby (which hopefully won’t happen this year as he’s in a stall during the day now), and Premier spray in mane and tail for softness and hydration.
He smells like a bouquet of flowers by the time we’re done, LOL.
I usually avoid bathing in the winter and give my horse a wipe down maybe once or twice between November-February with warm water and baby oil. In the spring/summer I wash with diluted purple soap and baby oil about every 2-3 weeks. If I don’t my horse becomes incredibly itchy. I am not sure if it’s summer allergens or just the fact that it’s super dry and his skin dries out.
I hose off after sweaty rides and will use an Epona Tiger Tongue while hosing for something I want to look a bit better for, but isn’t quite shampoo worthy either.
I shampoo before “High Holy Hunting Days” and doubly so before clipping.
I have bays with minimal white so that makes a big difference. When I had a grey to get ready for hunting… he was bathed with shampoo all over 5+ times through hunting season (Sep-March). Mainly because his alter ego is that of a yak and he needed clipping that often. Once he was clipped, the parts that weren’t covered by a fly sheet, rain sheet or blanket were scrubbed with soap twice a week.
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