My paint gelding has a lot of white. I can’t keep him clean. He loves to roll and also has a very messy stall so he ends up rolling/sleeping in his mess. Even during the day in the pasture he gets filthy. How do you keep a show horse like this clean for shows? Or is there a way to “teach” a horse to poop in one corner of the stall so he doesn’t lay in it??
Get a bay?? 
Keep a light sheet on all the time, try to keep him in a paddock that stays dry. I have heard that keeping one pile of poop in one corner of the stall will “teach” them to go where the poop already is, but it never worked for me. IME, geldings are way messier in stalls than mares. GL! Oh, and showsheen after baths!
Prayers… Shellack anything not in the saddle area with show sheen. Hose him off as often as possible, baths once or twice a week with Ivory soap and Orvus! Can you put a sheet on him in his stall, maybe a fly sheet in the field?
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We live in south texas…so a sheet isn’t really an option (wish it was)!! It’s just too hot for even the lightest sheet and he sweats pretty bad. Guess it’s just a lot of elbow grease! Wish I had thought of this before getting a white horse 
my paint mare is so clean and white. So maybe he is just a messy boy
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I have a mostly white leopard appaloosa – and she loves to lay in her mess in her stall - and roll in green grass acquiring grass stains!
My routine to keep her sparkling white:
First - Curry and brush all marks and stains daily (don’t let them set in!). A good brushing will take care of the majority of the stain. Those “slicker” shedding stones work well also.
Next - If there is still some discoloration from the stain – I scrub it with a baby wipe. These work really well to lift the stain and clean the coat.
If it is REALLY bad – go over the stain with rubbing alcohol if the baby wipe did not get it all up.
If dust is an issue (just read you are in TX), a vacuum can really help get any dirt out of the coat.
I rise my horse often after rides, and will spot shampoo any spots or stains (about once weekly). Once monthly, a bath with Quick Silver. Lower tail (also white) gets a quick silver wash at least monthly as well.
Vetroline shine (not on the saddle area!) helps repel stains.
My first grey mare seemed to just glow. In the moonlight she practically looked glow in the dark. Next grey mare was a flatter, more matte white, but still seemed to stay pretty clean. Current grey mare is a pigpen! I’ll curry one night and the next day she’ll have rolled in the mud on one side, manure stain on the other. Burrs in her mane. Sticks in her tail. Just a dirty horse.
StG
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Cowboy Magic Green Spot Remover, by the carload. Quicksilver shampoo. Orvus shampoo. Dawn dish detergent. Iodine shampoo. Old lady gray hair shampoo. That spray on white stuff that MTG makes to cover up dirt. White chalk. Lots of Show Sheen or Cowboy Magic equivalent. Fanciful White Minx Hair Rinse (for manes and tails) (You can get at drug store but here’s a link so you know what it is: http://www.otcretail.com/p363861.html?gclid=CMD4t92w4bYCFcbb4AodOgkASA)
All of these are in my grooming kit. Can you tell I have a gray? And a really messy one at that? I don’t even bother cleaning him up much from Nov to March, except washing his tail on warm days to keep it sorta clean while it’s bagged.
And I have noticed that he stays much cleaner when he’s out on pasture 24x7. Unfortunately, that approach only works part of the year here - the non-mud part.
Yep, lots of elbow grease and a tolerance for a horse that looks like Pig Pen most of the time! :eek:
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Great tricks and tips! Maybe it isn’t a lost cause after all!!
I have an appy with a lot of blue-white white.
Don’t wash too often and strip the hair or it will become porous and the stains will set.
Vetrolin Shine is my go-to product nowadays. Give the dry stain a good brushing to get rid of any loose stuff, then spray with Vetrolin Shine, brush it in a bit and leave it while you groom the rest of the horse. Take a barely damp cloth and rub the stained/sprayed area, leave to dry and then brush vigorously.
Once groomed, spray the horse all over liberally with the same stuff, brush in, and it will help the stains slide out.
Also, a tip I learned from Deltawave, keep a spray bottle of water with a few drops of Mrs. Stewart’s Bluing in it, and use spray over the finished groomed horse.
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I’ve had a blanket appaloosa and now a roan leopard appaloosa.
Showsheen the crap out of everything except the saddle area - it
really does help the stains brush out easily. Quick silver is the best
shampoo that I’ve found for whitening. A friend of mine used that
blueing stuff old ladies use, but make sure you dilute it because she
didn’t, and her horse’s tail turned blue ! She was horrified.
I will have to try the baby wipe/alcohol trick - that sounds lie a good
idea !
My old blanket appy loved to be dirty, but luckily my mare likes to be
clean. She’ll roll in the dust, but hates mud.
But last week she was naked for the first time since October … and I
swear she made up for lost ‘naked’ time. She was crusty every single
day last week. Oh well …
My solution these days is, I own a dun and a grulla w/no white on 'em!
That said, and in addition to the good suggestions already posted- back in the day when I needed ‘spot touchups’ after arriving wherever the horse needed to be clean, baby powder or cornstarch worked well.
More recently, I’ve experimented on the dun with instant hand sanitizer for manure stains- and that has worked well, too. I have to borrow a dirty grey horse or horse w/dirty white legs to experiment further however!
Does anyone have any ideas for a pee stain that WILL.NOT.GO.AWAY???
My wonderful boy has this dark pee stain on his left stifle that I can not get out. It is driving me crazy. I can not have him go into a competition looking like this…
I have tried everything short of dousing him in bleach… JK, sort of.
He must always sleep on this same side. It is the only spot that won’t clean up nicely.
I will try the alcohol trick today. Anything else???
Someone needs to invent horse pajamas…
To get the really stubborn stain out, mix up some Bon Ami powder with water and make a paste. Put that on the stain, let it dry, then brush it out. Should take the stain with it.
[QUOTE=superD;6955198]
Does anyone have any ideas for a pee stain that WILL.NOT.GO.AWAY???
My wonderful boy has this dark pee stain on his left stifle that I can not get out. It is driving me crazy. I can not have him go into a competition looking like this…
I have tried everything short of dousing him in bleach… JK, sort of.
He must always sleep on this same side. It is the only spot that won’t clean up nicely.
I will try the alcohol trick today. Anything else???[/QUOTE]
Head & shoulders shampoo on the stain
I’d use Witch Hazel for the tough stains on my grey. Put some on the corner of a towel and use some elbow grease.
When I owned a white-gray mare, I lived off slick n easy blocks, Miracle Groom, baby wipes, and daily power hosing (when it was warm enough).
I also clipped my daughter’s gray mare all summer long. The shorter the hair, the easier to keep clean. For shows she would wear a slinky on her neck, a day sheet, all four legs wrapped and a tail bag for the tail.
Just a note:
If you don’t want to spend a fortune on keeping him show-sheened, try Pink Sheen Spray. You can get it for a few dollars in an aerosol can in the “ethnic hair” section of most stores. I love it for shining my guy up and for detangling his tail. Also, it has a nice smell.
And when I groomed him up for shows, it was basically the day before multiple bathings with some kind of whitening shampoo, soaking his tail in more whitening stuff…and leaving him overnight with a sleezy on and/or show sheening the crap out of him.
Then I’d show up in the morning for a quick “foamy” bath with the soap sprayer you stick on the hose (faster than a ‘real’ bath) to get all the surface dirt off if he wasn’t sleezied.
I also sprayed the crap out of him with Cowboy Magic Green spot remover. And carried lots of baby wipes to the show with me for spot cleaning (like when he pooped in the trailer and got it on his hocks).
We’re not showing now and even though he’s out 24/7, his pasture stays pretty dry so he’s mostly just dusty but he manages to look pretty clean with basic grooming.
My grey stays quite clean since I’ve been feeding him sunnieflax. Dirt brushes off him quite easily. It’s also true of my bay, but it’s not as noticeable on her.
Dye him so he’s chestnut!
My gray mare is a pig pen as well. Most of the time I just pretend I can’t see the filth! I keep lots of Quicksilver on hand.
I also love the Pink Sheen that analise mentions. It smells great!
