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| win me! |
I am a huge fan of Absorbine; in fact, yesterday at the barn I surveyed my grooming supplies, fly sprays, and liniments and without meaning to, I had amassed a whole lot of Absorbine products. I like their products because they work, aren't insanely expensive, and best of all I am supporting an American company.
One thing I hadn't used until recently was the Stain Remover and Whitener, which is kind of funny because my heart horse, a grey Connemara (Dreamer, for anyone who remembers the Freedom Farm fiasco of last January) had one mission in life: be any colour other than grey. I sure could have used this stuff when I was riding him! I can remember many early show mornings when I got to the barn after scrubbing him within an inch of his life the night before, and covering as much of his little pony body as I could before going home, only to get there at 5am and find him absolutely covered in stains. Oooooh I would get so mad!
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| ok, not really *that* mad...I mean, look at his little pony face. SO CUTE. |
Outside, he was even worse. His paddock had a bunch of berry bushes in the back corner and he would routinely come in from turnout with purple splotches all over the place.
When I was horse shopping, I decided to limit my horse search to dark coloured horses, and Lucy entered the picture. Dark bay, some white on her legs but not a lot, and I was like, ok I can handle this! She stays pretty clean for the most part but occasionally will get some stains on her white socks. I tested the Stain Remover and Whitener out on her yesterday and it worked so well to get those pesky stains out, without having to give her a full bath.
So I have five 20oz bottles of Absorbine Stain Remover and Whitener to give away, courtesy of Absorbine, and to enter, simply comment on this blog post and tell me a story about when a horse chose a really inopportune time to get dirty, like before a show or when a potential buyer was coming to look at him. If you don't have a good story like that, tell me why you'd love to try the Stain Remover and Whitener. The five winners will be chosen randomly on Thursday 4/4 at 5pm EST.
Good luck!
I was grooming for a show barn and one of my charges was a 17h stunning palomino. I scrubbed him until he GLEAMED and then got him ready to ship out.
ReplyDeleteI was horrified when we unloaded at the show grounds--he spent the entire trailer ride leaning on the aluminum divider and now he had two silver streaks across his golden butt.
It took weeks to get those out. So much for tidiness.
My Riva loves to annoy me by backing her rump up to the butt bar in the trailer and proceeding to poop out days worth of meals on the way to shows. That lovely black and white (mostly white) tail ends up a not so attractive green by the time we arrive...not to mention her white back legs!
ReplyDeleteI have not tried the Absorbine Showsheen but really like their fly spray and linament!
My current pony HATES to be dirty. She goes out during the day and another horse is in her stall that is kind of messy and the look on her face when you put her back in her less than perfect stall is hilarious. She poops in one corner and pees only in the back corner. Now that she's sharing her stall with a Pigpen Pony, she doesn't have a clean spot to lay in. She actually had (gasp!) a big pee stain right on her head yesterday. I could have really used the whitener about then....
ReplyDeleteI used to show a grey arab in the Children's Jumpers who had aged to the point of being as white as Shadowfax. I would bathe him until he was sparkling the night before using every trick I knew, by the next morning he's be Green. By my second summer showing him I had decided it was best to just bathe him the morning of super early. Fun times. (I own a bay horse now who is no less piggy but it seems to work out better).
ReplyDeleteShy actually does not like to be dirty, but she does have her white blaze and one white half-sock. Her mane and tail are flaxen, which can get pretty sandy. She does like to roll in sand, but stays away from mud.
ReplyDeleteAlthough, when she had her first lesson last year, that was the day she picked to get super muddy, so it took me forever to de-mud her so she could be ridden.
Luckily my horse only has two little white pasterns to keep clean, but unfortunately, they are never clean. In fact, even when I have bathed him for a show, they never seem to be white. So yeah. Needless to say, I'd love to try the Whitener!
ReplyDeleteI have a completely grey horse (more white now, since he has lost almost all of his dapples). Last summer, Max was pasture boarded, so he would go back to his pasture after I rode and bathed him. He would, without fail, roll every. single. time. after a bath in the muddiest spot he could find, making baths completely pointless aside from cooling him off! Everyone always joked how he just wants to be a paint!
ReplyDeleteThankfully he is now stall boarded at night, so I can rest easy knowing I'll come back to a semi-clean horse the morning of a show! I definitely think we could benefit from this product!
We had a beautiful chestnut mare with a big blaze, tall socks in the back, and a little white pastern in the front. She was normally a fairly clean horse, and we always scrubbed her socks within an inch of her life before shows.
ReplyDeleteWithout fail, every single time we unloaded her at a show, her back socks were disgustingly covered in semi-liquid poop because she got nervous in the trailer.
Eventually we stopped washing her socks at home and started doing it at the shows, even though the logistics were usually more difficult.
I was showing a cute paint gelding a few years ago. He is the kind of paint that is 85% white with giant contrasting chestnut splotches on his rump, neck and chest. He also sports a sweet medicine hat, giving him cute orange ears. When this guy is clean, you need sunglasses to look at him. He shines. It takes WORK though, so much white, and if it's dull those orange spots don't pop.
ReplyDeleteSo I spent much time the night before scrubbing away until he was shiny. I wrapped him up in a blanket and such and put him away. He is not a super dirty horse, a few well place stains on his side or butt, but that was covered with the blanket so I was good to go.
I drove with my trainer to the show, but I didn't load him since there was several teenage girls around jumping at the chance to help. So when we arrived and he walked off the trailer that was when I first noticed his smear. Not on his body, not on his legs, on his FACE. And right on the cheek. And it gets better. It was green. It looked like someone had smashed their hand in a pile of poo and just smeared it on his face. There were four think streaks, almost like a hand print. Awesome. I did my best to get it out, but he still ended up with a green-tinted face.
I leased a big grey gelding in high school. We cleaned and cleaned and cleaned prior to our first horse show and the first night in his stall he wallowed like a pig and I had to scrub and scrub all over again. Worst is when you get up to the ring and see a missed spot and don't have a rag with some magic stain remover to get the awful mark off. My horse now is a solid bay but he still manages to stain his coat at times.
ReplyDeleteI showed a gray gelding maybe six years back whose goal in life was to be an Appaloosa. I cannot remember EVER seeing this horse without yellow/green stains on his butt or hind legs. Washed him for a show, stuck him in the stall, came by the next morning.. and Mr. Gray Horse had turned into Mr. Gray And Green Horse. An hour of scrubbing later, we headed into the ring, stains and all.
ReplyDeleteMy heart horse, a little grey pony named Spirit who could jump the moon was never dirty...UNTIL we got on the show grounds. Seriously this little guy was always white at home. Rarely rolled, laid in poop, hated mud and was always sparkly. Never failed though, he knew when we were goign showing. Normally he would poop on himself in the trailer, or lay down immediately inhis temp stall and get green stains all over his bum. It was like, WHY, Spirit, why!? You never ar ethis dirty at home. Silly ponies.
ReplyDeleteI had just finished around four hours of grooming and trimming. Molly was shining, and the minute I turned her out she went all the way across her field, and rolled in a patch of burs.
ReplyDeleteNeighgirl
We don't get many occasions to "dress up" these days - leave it to my whiter every year ottb to sleep on his poo pillow the night before a recent date with the videographer.
ReplyDeleteIt was too cold and windy for bathing, so he required the endless curry session... yay - it's shedding season! ;D
I did my Pony Club B-level test on a borrowed grey horse. I had only ever owned/shown darker horses, like chestnuts and bays. I gave him a scrub down the night before the test, kissed him on the nose, and then I showed up in the morning to... a green and brown poop monster. Pony Club testers care A LOT that your horse - and everything else you touch - is spotless. I was already so nervous that I took one look at the horse and ran to the restroom to throw up. Fortunately, I managed to scrub him clean again and stand him in the sun with just long enough to dry before the first inspection, but I was near tears! Fortunately, the tester laughed at my story and that put me at ease, and I passed the B test no problem, thanks in part to that lovely horse.
ReplyDeleteI used to event my moms old Appaloosa mare Jewlie (Eskimo Pie). She was a few spot Appaloosa with pink skin. She took 3 to 4 baths before a show to get her sparkling clean, but we always "wowed" the judges with out turnout.
ReplyDeleteThe major downfall to all this, was Jewlies need to lean on the butt bar during her trailer ride. She would poop on the way to the show, and then proceed to lean her entire big butt into her poop for the whole hour or 2 trailer ride. By the time she got to the show, her whole bum would be green and brown....requiring at least an hour of washing to be ready to show!
Here she is :)
http://www.eventingnews.com/results/pt20-cd00-toripengelly.jpg
A friend invited me out to ride with her out at Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park by Mandan, North Dakota. She told me over the phone about the horse I'd be riding. A big paint horse named Patch that was mostly white and his owner kept him blindingly white all the time. When we arrived to her barn we walked up to Patch's run and there he was with marker grafatti All. Over. He had circles around his eyes, 'Michelin walking horse' written across his butt, suns, moons, stick figures throwing spears tic-tac-toe on his rump, you name it he was covered head to toe in brightly colored marker. Apparently some of the boarders wanted to play a prank on his owner. It wouldn't have been so bad if we had just stuck to riding out away from people, but we stopped at the little gift shop next to General George Custer's home to get some snacks and beverages. You wouldn't believe the look of horror in my face as I stammerd and tried to explain what happend to the horse to a family of Native Americans who looked at me and the horse as if I was mocking their culture. They laughed at how embarassed I was and were making jokes with me afterwards. I don't think I have ever been more embarassed about my horse in my life.
ReplyDeleteI was 15 and just recently had become the owner of my most-white tobiano Paint. We were riding in a parade the following day, and while all my friends went out and enjoyed a wonderful early autumn trail ride, I stayed at the barn and scrubbed my pretty girl until she shined. I was proud of all my hard work and happily cleaned her stall and bedded it down and put her away, blanketed and mane and tail braided and ready to go for the following day...
ReplyDeleteNeedless to say, I got to the barn and she managed to get manure stains all up her neck and down her hip and leg. I didn't let anyone see them, but tears definitely flowed. It took 2 more hours of elbow grease, but I managed to get her looking at least descent.
Moral of the story? Bays are awesome.
Q (and one day Griffin) will be in a lot of parades in the area this year. We have 4 planned currently for the year. Its a great way to get out and show the community that horses can behave. The weather around here is crazy a lot of the time, and 3 of the 4 shows occur when its usually too cold to give a bath. Those beautiful, tall white stockings each of my horses have are impossible to get clean without a long bath - even with a bath they NEVER get perfectly white. I'd LOVE to add this product to my arsenal!
ReplyDeleteI used to ride a big 16hh piebald and use him for show jumping, I got him all sorted the night before the competition only to find that they let him out that night, not only that but it was supposed to be nice so he had no rugs on, it chucked it down all night and he was covered in mud!
ReplyDeleteI rode a light palomino that was also extremely fuzzy. Before every fox hunt without fail, he would find a nice big puddle to stick his butt in... so I'd be at the trailer trying to scrub off mud while keeping my stock tie clean. Silly pony!
ReplyDeleteI have 7 grey horses under my care right now ( and 5 darker colored ones) I could go on and on (and on) about the millions of times they've decided they'd rather be dirty. Did I mention that I live in a tropical area? We have mud alllll year 'round. And if we don't have mud, we have desert-like dust.
ReplyDeleteI think we can all imagine what 7 grey horses look like covered head-to-toe in mud/dust :P
Not a story - just a whine. Ben and Boomer are Clydesdales. With white feathers. 8 legs of white feathers that become gray dreadlocks every single time we get moisture. It's a constant battle to make them white, especially in the winter when you don't want to wash them and have horses standing around with wet legs in the cold.
ReplyDeleteMy little Show Pony is the filthiest, dirtiest, most mud-loving pig masquerading as a pony you've ever met.
ReplyDeleteI need some stain remover!
Grayson is like that great rug that never shows any dirt! ha ha! As a roan, I swear everything just blends in! But the boy does have three lovely white stockings that always seem to have some stains but I can't bring myself to buy stain remover for just a few stockings...especially since we don't show. So I'd love to win some to try it out! :)
ReplyDeleteI lease my Callie's momma- who had four HIGH white stockings that I swear were permanently green on her knees! I had a big horse show that weekend so I spent literally hours scrubbing, washing, rinsing, drying, scrubbing, etc. Once she was dry, I put her away in her nice spotless stall, considered letting her sleep in shipping boots but thought against it...well, of course wouldn't you know the next morning those knees were POOP brown...
ReplyDeleteWell, Kate, you know me! I don't sell my ponies cause I love all of them way too much! and I don't show currently because I am toooo busy with keeping all the fat off of them!! HA!
ReplyDeleteBUT, I do have THREE precious babies that are pintos and one that is totally almost white, Sassy. She of ALL horses loves to walk down to the one little spot in the pasture that is the RED GEORGIA CLAY. Good Lord. I don't think I have to say anymore! :)
I could have used that stuff this past November at Equine Affaire. Miss Wind was representing the Thoroughbred breed in a breed demo, and I wanted her to look extra spiffy and get all her "chrome" shining. Of course being a Lovely New England Winter, there was no way that I could have given her a bath, and it figures that she had to go into heat just days before and got her white socks that yummy shade of brownish yellow. No matter what I did I could not get those socks white, and everything I tried only spread the stains around and turned the whole think brownish yellow.
ReplyDeleteMom could use some of that with Buggy. She takes the greatest pleasure in dust bathing during the day and laying in manure at night so her white splashes nicely blend into the buckskin.
ReplyDelete