Braided Brilliance | FEI groom and equine braider

Let’s talk about braid results and the manes we’re given.

The other week I was braiding at a busy busy busy show, where I had to even rely on other braiders’ help to get all the horses done. During the week I encountered soooo many different manes.

And interestingly enough, the third morning of the show I woke up to a message saying: “Wondering why my horse only has 12 braids.”

I stared at the message for a bit, confused. Granted, I had just woken up after about 3 hours of sleep, with my back and hands aching, head pounding, and starving.

I scrolled back the horses in my mind, and went through my pictures before I realized which horse the client was talking about.

Indeed, the horse only had 12 braids.

I scratched my head and sighed with a little bit of frustration.

“The horse only has 12 braids because she barely has any mane,” I responded.

I went back to sleep.

This particular client didn’t want to work with me going further. That’s totally fine with me.

But here’s the thing. We WANT to put a nice 30 (give or take) braids on your horse’s mane. But if there’s no hair there, how exactly are we supposed to do that?

Your horse’s braid result depends very much about the mane we’re given. This also includes:

• Was the horse’s mane pulled, cut, razored or yank-pulled so that the hairs broke in the middle instead of got pulled from the roots?
• Is the mane too long, too thin, too thick, too short?
• Is there conditioner or shampoo residue in the mane?

Take a look at some pictures below. All of these horses had different manes, so the braid results vary hugely.