The Marathon Begins

The annual Paradigm Farms Body Clipping Marathon began this week. The first four horses of the marathon were clipped on Thursday and Friday. We are officially four down and quite a few more to go.

We kicked off the first day with the two hairiest horses, Renatta and Norman. Despite the fact that I have spent hours with a shedding blade taking massive amounts of hair off Renatta, she still won the hairiest horse award. Norman came in second in the hairiest horse (or in Norman’s case pony) award, but he doesn’t shed at all in the spring, so every bit of his winter coat gets clipped off of him. Norman is fabulous to clip, not only because of his perfect manners but also because of his Teflon coat. The clippers glide through Norman’s hair and you go from coarse, thick, faded winter coat to a shiny summer coat underneath.

We finished the week up by clipping Lily and Renatta. Lily was dethroned from the hairiest horse award this year. She had her usual crazy amounts of hair for her winter coat, but did a much better job shedding a lot of it out this spring. Maisie is another horse that is a pleasure to clip. Things always look hopeless when you start clipping her thick, dull, winter coat. But waiting underneath is always a shining, gorgeous, rich bay coat. You feel like you are unwrapping a pretty painting as you clip Maisie.

I’m looking forward to taking the hair off many more horses over the next couple of weeks.

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Despite the fact that I have removed enough hair off Renatta to keep ten horses warm over the winter, she still wins the hairiest horse award. Here she is all scrubbed up and waiting to be rinsed.

If you didn’t know better you would think Renatta hadn’t done any shedding at all prior to being clipped

the finished product; Renatta was over it all not wanting to go back to the pasture which is the usual theme of the after pictures

Norman doesn’t shed his winter coat at all so he had plenty of hair that needed to be removed

Norman clipped and ready to return to his ladies

Lily and Maisie drying after their baths and unaware they are about to be clipped

We got a lot more hair off of Lily with the shedding bring than usual this spring so clipping Lily wasn’t as big of a job as usual but she still had too much hair left