Cooling off! Add what works for you.

With summer coming I wanted to know what methods for cooling off your horse worked best.
For me hosing/ spounging off.
Anyothers?

You mean after a workout or in general?

It gets pretty hot where I am in the summer. Triple digits by June. So after a work out a long walk in the shade is a must. Then they get completely hosed off. If they've really worked hard I pour a little vetrolin or cooling brace into a bucket of water and sponge them with that as well. Some horses get electrolytes in their feed.

Every horse in our barn has a stall fan that's on pretty much starting may and we have some industrial sized aisle fans that keep air moving through the barn. Other then that, not sure what else we can do for them!

This is what works best for our horses:

I wish we had a place to go swimming here. I used to love that when I was a kid :) I just hose off my horse after the ride, squeegee her off and hand graze her in the shade until she is dry.

I rinse the legs and chest area first. Then I rinse the body several times, scraping off the excess water each time. If you just rinse a hot horse once, their body will heat the water up and actually make them hotter.