Tail braiding

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For some reason I've always had a knack for braiding tails (manes, however are a totally different story haha) but I suck at french plaiting human hair :S

-Take small chuncks (about half a cm max) right from the underside of the tail when the soft skin is.
-I also leave a little room between the chunks on the underside so the hair going round stays more horizontal further down the tail and neater (this is probably why I can't french braid a humans hair very well ).
-I cross the hair from the existing plait before I add the chunk from underneth so the main plait looks tighter and you can play around with the tightness of the added strands to keep the braid straight.
-Also stand directly behind the horse so it doesnt go all wonky (talk to them and be aware when doing grumpy horses!!).

The top is the hardest bit to look neat, so for shows I would use a tinsy bit of hair spray or styling get at the top to get it lying flat and without the spunky stray bits pointing out everywhere! If im just plaiting for the heck of it I don't bother neatening the top.

You and I have the exact same abilities haha! Only -just managed to braid human hair - after many years of failing!

I remember one time when I was still riding at a riding center and they held shows that the students could enter, and I was standing there plaiting about 5 different horse's tails because I had a knack for it... was asked to do manes too - but I was quick to avoid that disaster

LOL me and one of friends were prepairing some of the stables ponies for an in-house competition (still VERY competitive!) and our instructor laughed at us because my tail was epic but my mane awful, and my friends tail disasterous but her mane brilliant! She said we shoulda done a sneeky horse swap halway through the plaiting process so both ends of out horses were good!!

Whatever you do do not use a detangler on the tail as this makes the hair slippery to keep in the plait.



It is a matter of practice and if you are doing it on your horse start lower down as often you can pull out the top hairs.

Start with a few hairs from either side and the third hair for the plait comes fro a lower side, no need to take anything from the centre.

I always do my braid so it is on the top - takes me about 10 minutes to do a tail right up like above for hunting.

We used to just use water with a dandy brush to wet smooth the hair. We had to do the braid as the first pic but a little longer. The long braided end was then worked back up with a sweatscraper.