Brandy came to me with the last ten to twelve inches of her mane about four inches long, in a straight cut and then the rest of her mane was super thick, she has quite course hair there, and it was long and ragged..
Her tail was no better, it had been straight cut across on the bottom, much shorter then I would have left it if it was me..
So I have been fighting to figure out different combs and brushes to try and work with her mane, and finally I was flipping though my new horse care book and saw that they had a recommendation for super thick manes.. thinning shears..
These need to be double sided thinnning shears and the instructions was very clear on how to do it so that it looks as natural as possable, I will straight up say that I did it first the way recommended to see how it went and was very pleased but I also wanted to even out the mane to a point length wise as well.
So to just thin it out, you take your thinning shears and lift a small portion of the mane up at the roots, doing a total of three cut one at the bottom, one at the middle and one at the endish.. keep the bottom one end to the next cut but play with the spacing on the middle and end each time.. This will allow the mane to be thinned down but keep that natural look that lots of uneven hair ends gives..
Now because I also wanted to try and start getting the mane to be evened out, I want to shorten the long part and take out nothing on the short part, so it required more trimming with the sheers then I would recommend if you were going just for the natural look.
Still I think she looks much better with her new cut personally, I also learned that she does not care at all about having clicking sissors worked on her even up to her ears, nor does she care if you pull her mane by hand, and or pull her tail by hand.
Which is how I plan on retraining her tail into its correct shape an style, allowing it to grow and also hand pulling it, and I might even save some of those great horse hairs and use them to do a tiny bit of edging sewing to send something to my beloved family 🙂
Just another Day on the Farm 
Nice “do”! LOL! Sounds kinda like what my hairdresser does: )
Now what’s this “tiny bit of edging sewing to send something to my beloved family” all about? Something like blanket stitching, only done with horsehair? Now THAT would be one tough finish; can’t wait to see the post! You’ve got me humming: “All I want for Christmas is a blanket box, a blanket box, a blanket box… ”
:D:D:D
I always thought that the horse’s mane and tail were supposed to be long so that they could ‘swat’ flies (that land on them) with them…???
In a natural horse setting, they would stand nose to tail and give each other a helping hand or tail as it may be.. but given that she has a barn to come and go into at will, and that she is groomed and sprayed down with a bug treatment recipe each morning, plus she has already started a worming/health program since arriving here, she does not need a extra long mane, I will grow it out another inch or two but will continue to keep it thinned and trimmed, her tail is another matter, I will in fact allow it to grow out but will keep it pulled for both looks/tidy sake.