Hand-grooming is a great way to build trust and a relationship with your horse. It is a very intimate exercise and your horse may well want to join in. Some horses take a while to get used to it, so pay attention to your horse’s responses and work in small sections if your horse seems unsure.

Hand-grooming basically replaces the body brush phase of grooming on a stabled horse. With hand-grooming you start at the neck, behind the ears, and work in firm, sweeping strokes down the neck. You then follow the same route as with the body brush. With hand-grooming you move a flat hand all over the body in the direction of the hair growth. Hand-grooming can be done one- or two-handed but, whichever way you choose, try to build up a rhythm, as this will help to relax the horse. Remember that you are hand-grooming and not massaging the horse, so work gently in the direction of the hair growth.

One of the advantages of hand-grooming is that you run your bare hand over your entire horse. This allows you to feel every lump and bump, every variation in the coat texture, every difference in the temperature of the skin and all the tension in the muscles. In short, it tells you a huge amount about the mental and physical health of your horse.

On top of this, flat-hand exploration will really tell you how clean your horse is and, believe it or not, is a great way to remove dirt. Brushes often accumulate dust and dirt and, if not thoroughly cleaned by the teeth of the curry comb, can end up just recycling the dirt around your horse. Using your hand and dusting it off periodically, removes this risk. Throughout the process, your hand will also naturally warm up, and a warm hand is great at stimulating the glands on the skin to produce sebum, which lubricates the skin, giving the coat its shine.

Another interesting benefit of this technique is that a hand placed on the skin of the horse will increase the blood supply to that area by around 80%. The overall effect of this is to increase the oxygen supply to the tissues, increase the nutrient supply to the cells, and speed up the removal of toxins and waste products from cell respiration. All of this helps to improve skin and coat health.

However, we would still argue that the greatest benefit of hand-grooming lies in the fact that it can be used to build a better relationship with your horse, and also to calm him in a way that conventional grooming does not. Hand-grooming really is excellent at promoting relaxation. In fact, after just a few minutes of hand-grooming, most horses will sigh and, over the course of a session, many horses will appear to fall asleep. Keep your hand movements rhythmical and gentle, and follow a natural order as you move around the body. In this way, you will allow your horse to really relax and enjoy spending this time with you.