Making her tail black again

My horse's tail is really black in the middle, but on the outsides where the sun hits it esp on the top, it's this kind of orangy color

Are there any shampoos or conditioners I could buy to make her hair black again, or to prevent it from getting bleached out next summer at the very least? Here's what it looks like now...I don't have any good pics on my computer here at work but you can kinda almost see the orangy pieces peeking out from just below where the flaps on her blanket hit at the top...

I believe they make a supplement to keep there coats from getting sunbleached. I am not sure what it is called though. But there is a horse at my barn that gets them. I will try to find the name.

This one is easy, hair dye. We had a fake tail for Max that was very very black and where he was out through the fall, spring, and winter his tail looked like your mare's. We would dye it at the first of every show season and it was great through the summer.

You can try putting her up during the day though, that will keep her from bleaching out.

When I showed Chloe that's what I had to do. Her tail gets really orange and it bothered me. I havent done it in a couple years though because Grace isnt really showing to much anyways

To do it I washed it a few days ahead of time and kept it wrapped so it wouldnt get really dirty again. I would take a garbage bag and poke a hole at the base and run it up her tail to protect her buckskin color (I used tape to tpe it to her body). Since she has some frosting I didnt want to lose that so I tucked the strands under the bag as well. Then I would but tape on the bag but wrap it tight around the base of her tail.

I would continue to use plastic to basically wrap her back half of her body. It took 2 bottles of dye and I applied like you would to a human. While it was in the sit time I would wrap it in plastic to avoid her from swishing her tail. Then I would rinse like normal and apply the conditioner that came with the dye. I really had to make sure that nothing was left on the tail. Then I would unwrap Chloe and let the tail dry.

Chloe stands really good for this as long as the flies arent bothering her. It is amazing what we make our horses go through....lol

Haha, Max was the same way. He didn't care anything about it. We just washed it the day that we would dye it and go ahead. He did get a few black spots on him everyonce in a while, but we could generally get those out with a rubber curry.

We also used spray coloring on his black legs. His legs weren't really solid black so we colored them so they would be. He always looked really sharp when we were finished.

We don't do Max either, he is completely retired. Its definitely a well deserved retirement because he was so tolerant!

If you are just doing it for an occasion like a show or parade or even to "show up the Johnsons" on a holiday trail ride you could use that spray that you get around Halloween, it definitely makes hair black and comes out pretty easily with a good sudsing or even a good brushing... less invasive and time consuming than dyeing the tail. You can usually find it year round in gift and novelty stores or stores like Hot Topic or Spencers Jokes.
I've also heard about henna shampoos that are suppused to darken them up nicely without the chemicals and irritants of dyes.

Nelson's tail does the same thing, when the summer hits and the sunshine beams - his tail bleaches out. So does his coat. It's natural and it doesn't effect how you place at an HT.

I wouldn't worry about it personally :)

I call them Nelson's highlights :)