Is this even possible? I guess it doesn’t matter, I need to pull it shorter anyway. My new horse has REALLY ample hair fore and aft! I have to keep his forelock braided to keep it out of his eyes. I tested out a super thinning rake that the local Custom Saddlery rep sells, but jeez! It costs like $75!
Is there a device for this purpose that you like best? Are they all that expensive? I hope not!
This was my suggestion if and only if you do not have to braid that mane because it cuts the hair. I took four handfuls of mane off of my horse this spring and DID braid that in the fall when it was half grown out, and it took a lot of hair spray and a lot of trimming fuzzies. Other than that, this thing works like a charm, horses don’t mind it at all, and even better, you can get it for half the price if you call it a “pet thinning comb” and take the Solo brand name out of it. Find them at your nearest pet supply.
(When he turned 18 and semi-retired, I decided that mane pulling was one of the things that my horse didn’t like and thus didn’t have to deal with, and have gone at it with a scissors, clipper blade, or thinning comb ever since. I figure I braid him myself once a year and I’m the only person I’ll ever piss off. He looks pretty good with 55 braids in his neck, but I am a bad example to the barn kids.)
Do not use a human thinning comb. It makes the mane impossible to look good.
Ask me how I know this (trimming a yearling before the September sales at Keeneland. The sale at which every other hose looked like a model for Vanity Fair, and mine looked like Dennis the Menace.)
I appreciate all the replies. Because I will be showing this horse and braiding, then I guess I will stick with the standard methods. He doesn’t seem to mind old fashioned mane pulling, although I confess to using one of those Grooma devices when I’m strapped for time. He’s big, has a big neck and I think the big button braids will look really good on him, so may as well let him flaunt what nature gave him. 
I use a pair of human thinning sheers to thin my mare’s mane all the time. I cut it right at the base where the hair meets the neck and make single cuts. Meaning…I pull up a clump of hair, put the sheers against the neck and cut. I do this from poll to withers–and sometimes back up, depending on how long it has been.
I don’t braid very often any more, but none of the braiders I have hired in the past few years have complained about it.
I was a rebel and shaved the underside of my horse’s mane. I show braided and it looked fine.
I’ve done that that with my chestnut appendix QH who has a strong dislike of mane pulling, but had a mane almost as thick as a Shetland pony. It looked great, and I’m very partiular about good turnout. Unless somebody got right up beside her they wouldn’t be able to see the clip job.
If you are your own braider, you are reasonably good at being your own braider, and you have an extra 20 minutes to spend on putting 15-20 extra braids into your horse’s neck, the thinning comb is an untraditional but potentially viable option. The result is braidable, but you’ll need to have strong hands and a keener than usual attention to size, and you’ll be trimming flyaways all season. I wouldn’t take my horse to Devon with the braids I put in after using one of these, but he was certainly fit to be seen in public; and as Devon does not hold classes for semi-retired schoolmasters who double add off the right lead, there’s no particular problem with this approach. 
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