I have seen this and wonder what is the origin of tail pulling? Is there a best way to do it? Most I see look shaved rather than pulled.
It’s common in the UK for foxhunters, so I’m guessing that’s where it comes from. None of my horses have ever tolerated actual pulling. I always do it with scissors-- I worked for an UL rider and that is how she did them as well.
Why do it? First it accentuates the bum: a thinner dock, and banged skirt, make the horse’s butt look more muscly. It also accentuates a tail held slightly away from the body in an alert way, when viewed from the side, making the horse look more… vivacious 
Next, in hot climates/hard work it allows more air flow to an area that gets pretty sweaty.
Last, you can get the same affect by braiding/plaiting the tail, but plaiting takes more effort and time than shaving/pulling. Traditionally, a pasture kept horse was braided so the extra tail hair could protect the horse’s sensitive rear end from rain and wind, but the stabled horse had its tail pulled.
I like shaving: lots of horses hate being pulled, and not many people do a good job of it either.
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Xanthoria’s right.
I love the look, but hate pulling. Sometimes I do a combination of shaving and shortening with a razor comb. For several years I’ve had young horses that also show in H/J so I’ve held off. I’m almost getting used to the H/J look of unbraided mane, full but banged tail, and ear bonnet. It sure is easier!
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I’ve never known anyone to pull the tail. I’ve just known people who shave it and I don’t like the look. My trainer tried to get me to do it at one point but I was so adamant against it she finally gave up. She knows I do what I want with my horse as far as looks go.
She doest get on me a bit about banging my horse’s tail, but her tail touches the ground. My trainer likes her horses’ tails banged halfway to the hock but she would be happy if my horse just didn’t drag her tail in the mud. Then again, she drags all of herself in the mud quite often so there’s that.
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I’ve never understood the tail pulling. Most dressage people don’t do it. Show jumpers don’t do it. Micheal Jung doesn’t do it. Seems more of a personal preference.
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I don’t get why they do that. You’re cutting away all the new growth and guaranteed a thin tail going forward. The ones I’ve seen have been poorly done and look like someone took clippers to it with the wrong blade. I can see maybe trimming back any short pieces that flare out, but that’s about it.
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Actually if you look at the hairs growing from the top sides of the dock they don’t fall all the way to the bottom of the skirt, so pulling/trimming the sides doesn’t affect tail thickness when done properly.
Hey it’s a look and a tradition: I think it’s very smart. When I moved to the USA I found the wispy, floor-dragging tails of US horses very oddly unkempt and sad looking. But it must have seeped into my unconscious: Then went to Hickstead last year and was shocked how short the banged tails were! :eek:
Came home and banged my guy’s tail and am loving how little mud gets in it :yes:
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I like a banged and pulled tail. I don’t actually pull my horse’s tail, I just use clippers. I’m pretty conservative with how far I come down too so that I don’t clip any of his long tail hairs. He has a fairly thick tail, and I want to keep it that way.
You probably have to keep up with clipping the tail more than pulling because it grows back faster, so if I let it go for a while he’ll get fluffs along the sides of his tail like this:
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This was probably the first time I did it (about a year ago), so I went down too far and made the pulled/clipped area too long. It’s only about half that length down his tail now. It’s just hair, so it can always be fixed :lol:
[ATTACH=JSON]{“data-align”:“none”,“data-size”:“full”,“data-attachmentid”:10305798}[/ATTACH]
This is how I do it now. It keeps the sides very neat and tidy and accentuates his hind end, but it’s not a big dramatic change.
Banging his tail keeps it a lot cleaner in the winter and also looks very classic to me, like old time TB paintings 
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Of course it’s a personal preference. But you are referring to recent times. Trends change.
Dressage used to do pulled tails and I’ve noticed they are starting to again. They are doing only a few inches, not all the way to the point of buttocks.
Show jumpers in the U.K. used to; it’s a hunting and showing tradition.
Michael Jung is only in his 30s. He doesn’t clip whiskers either (it’s forbidden in Germany on horse welfare grounds).
I think it’s great that you can do what you want. We are not show hunters that apparently all need to look identical.
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While most people I know tidy the dock at a minimum, I’ve only known one person who pulled her tail and the horse really hated it. It really didn’t look very different from a trimmed/clippered tail so I’d rather do what is a completely painless option.
I like a modest tidy to create clean lines. The sides are trimmed and then once I reach the ischium I start blending out to create as seamless of a transition as possible.
Exactly! I don’t get why it’s done either. It doesn’t look better imo. Plus so much growth never happens because you are cutting it all. Don’t tell me it doesn’t effect the thickness, of course it does. I take care of my horses tails daily because I love them but also so they have a nice tail for flies in the summer. In three years the dock hair will be halfway down the tail. Yeah I pay attention to the growth, I pay attention to everything about them because I’m a horse nerd :lol:
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Pulling the tail was done traditionally to at least show jumpers in the UK. You would pull the side hairs near the top of the tail, not pull the hair on top of the tail. So the effect was to narrow the tail top and the remainder would be fuller. If you only pull from the sides at the top the tail will not thin out over time since those hairs are connected to the top backside part of the tail.
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I pull all of my ponies tails. Well, I use scissors but I’m very good at it and I think they all look amazing with a clean looking bum
We drive so I hate the look of an unkept tail under a crupper. I also show a lot on the line and a nice clean tail makes their hindquarters look bigger. I could braid the tail, but I can’t for driving as it is against the rules, so I keep a nice clean dock and it looks much neater and tidier in my opinion.
And I don’t know about the tail thinning some people are saying - one of my ponies has enough tail for 2 maybe 3 horses and I’ve been “pulling” his tail for the past 8 years now. I have to actually cut so much of it away as its too heavy. A lot of judges acutally have to physically move his tail to see his hind legs/hocks in line classes…
Thinning shears, used judiciously do a great job. They also avoid having your head removed from your shoulders by an impatient hind hoof,when pulling.
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If something has no practical reason and is only for “appearances” I tend to not do it. Messing with whiskers, tails, ears, is a no, no, in my book. Altering a horse’s natural look simply for competition reasons is something that I stopped doing long ago.
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Do you braid?
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I’ve always heard that pulling/trimming the tail accomplishes the same thing as braiding - to accentuate a well-muscled hindquarter, but is preferred in dressage/eventing for 2 main reasons.
- it takes less time
- some horses don’t like the feeling of a braided tail and get tense in their back
If #2 is really true, I’ve always wondered why manes aren’t roached as well for dressage horses (makes sense for eventers because we need something to grab onto during XC). Why braid the mane but avoid the tail? If a horse is tense because of a tail braid I imagine that mane braids would make their neck tense as well.
As you notice, I said “tend not to do.” At the same time, a braided mane can be immediately returned to a regular mane right after dressage. Unlike shaved ears, etc. those are modifications that must take time to undo.
Now, I generally don’t braid until Preliminary levels. Up to that point, I have not seen significant penalization.
When appearances, fashion, style all supersede function, ability, and substance, we have lost the true meaning of the sport.
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I’ve always wondered why eventers don’t use mud knots for XC. Anyone know why?
Fancy preparation is for jogs, dressage, and showjumping, but mud knots would be very functional in XC, especially in the rain.
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