Regular Bathing
Wet your horse's whole body with warm water. Put about half a cup of baby shampoo in a full-size bucket and fill with warm water; then sponge the liquid on and lather his whole body. Use the scrub brush to remove ground-in dirt-and don't forget his ears and the base of the mane, both places where dirt builds up, and where left-on dirt will really stand out against a sparkling white coat. (To clean the ears, wet them first with the sponge; then apply a small amount of shampoo to the outsides with your hands and scrub with your fingers. Be careful not to get any water inside the ears when you rinse.)
Rinse your whole horse thoroughly-if you let the shampoo dry on his coat, he'll look dull instead of shiny. Treat any stains that haven't come out with Quic Silver; apply full-strength, rub in, leave on for two to three minutes, and then rinse off.
If your horse has dry skin, after you've rinsed him off put a few drops of bath oil in a bucket of water and sponge that solution over him. (Just a few drops; don't overdo. An oily coat attracts dust.)
Cold-weather modification: Take advantage of any unseasonably warm days to bathe your horse. If you must bathe him on a colder day, wash just one area at a time. Start with the legs, tail and hindquarters; when they're finished, cover the quarters with a cooler. Next do the neck and mane, and finally the midsection (the most important part to guard from getting chilled); when you're finished there, cover his whole body with several dry coolers and walk him to help his body temperature stay up.
Pre-Show Preparation
The two-bath routine I use is a modification of my regular bathing technique. (If you're not bathing your gray horse regularly in cold weather, I suggest you do this variation a week before any show he may be going to, so that you get out most of the built-up dirt, and again on the day of the show.)
First, I apply Quic Silver to the legs. I rub the Quic Silver full-strength into all four legs, scrub each for about thirty seconds, and then rinse all four. The whole process takes less than three minutes.
Next I wet the whole body with water and scrub with Orvus paste shampoo, which gets out dirt better than anything else I've used. After I've rinsed out this first shampoo, I put Quic Silver full-strength on any stains still remaining. Then I pour about half a cup of Quic Silver into a bucket of warm water, making a slightly sudsy solution; I sponge this over his whole body, leave on for a minute or two, and then rinse very thoroughly. (I'm especially careful about rinsing the mane if I'm going to braid it -- soapy manes are very slippery.)
As a final touch, after the horse is dry, I use ShowSheen on his tail. It works a little like floor wax, helping to keep dust from settling on those clean tail hairs. If the tail doesn't get braided, I comb the ShowSheen through the whole tail; with a braided tail, I just use it below the braid.
