[iSpeakBully]

I’m soon to be getting a black horse and would love what shampoos and conditioners you like to use to enhance this color? What other grooming tips do you have? I’m so used to having a grey that this will be completely new to me!

 

[SteadyOn]

They definitely make shampoos specifically for black horses, but there are other, more effective ways to keep black horses black.

One is nutritional balance. Ensuring they have enough zinc and copper in the diet is important. What's good for feet is, not too surprisingly, also good for coat health. My horse isn't black, but I do feed her one of the recommended balancers for hoof health (Amino Trace+ in my case, as I'm in Canada). If she were a black horse, I would definitely have her on the same diet.

Feeding the Hoof

www.hoofrehab.com

The other things is sunlight. A full UV-protective fly sheet with hood will act like sunblock and also help prevent fading. I believe there are also UV-protective coat sprays you can buy. I don't know how well they work but it's probably worth a try.

 

[Sybrin]

Working with Friesians, trying to keep them black is pretty much ALL I do lol.

One is in a sweet itch rug all season long and she's always jet black. But that's also genetic (with Friesians at least, so I'm assuming other black horses too). Some of them just stay jet black regardless more than others. The youngest is bare all year round and she's starting to brown a little bit, but so far it seems minimal. I groom them extensively, but not daily and let the mud/sand do its job.

Now, when it's show season time we do prepare them with colour enhancing shampoos and conditioners. I use a local brand that's marketed specifically for Friesians so I wouldn't know where you would get that from, but my alternative is Gallop's colour enhancing shampoo/conditioner for black horses. After a washing I always top it off with conditioning sprays and a merino wool glove.

And as mentioned above, nutritions.