Decorating the Mane
(Retyped from The Draft Horse Primer)
The best way to instruct someone on decorating a nice textured mane with the commonly used Aberdeen Plait is with a horse that is quiet and accustomed to being braided. It is much more difficult to do in print, but I’ll do the best I can to get you started. Competence can be acquired only by practice. In this case a good braiding job comes after many sore fingers and failures, but it is well worth the trouble. A good job of braiding does much to enhance the natural beauty of a draft horse and is very rewarding to the horseman ( or woman).The mane should be clean, well brushed out, and combed. Most draft horses are shown with right-hand manes.
We use two colors of yarn. They should be colors that harmonize with the horse and mane. We use red and white. I prefer using thirty to thirty-six strands. Each skein (one of each color) should be four to 4.5 feet long when straightened (not stretched) out. The ends are then matched and a bit of white yarn tied securely around the rolls about ½ inch from the end; or if you use just one color, just double the length and tie a knot in the middle.
A braiding bench is needed. This bench should be 4 ½ to five feet long, ten to twelve inches wide, and twenty-six to forty-two inches high. This somewhat resembles a sawhorse except it is taller and the legs on the side that goes next to the horse are at right angles to the ground.
The horse’s head should be secured to a wall in the normal position for a hitch or line class. If tied too high most horses will fret and become very uneasy. A braid put in at an unnatural position will tend to bother the horse and pull out. Our horses at Yorktown Livery have their manes rolled 175 times a year so they take it in stride. Don’t expect a horse to be unconcerned about it the first few times.
Place the braiding stool up beside the horse’s neck on the side of the mane and face the same way the horse does. Begin about two inches back of the ears or as close up as the clipped bridle path will allow. Lay the mane roll over the horse’s neck ahead of the long mane. Select a strand of hair, equal in quantity and bulk to one strand of the mane roll, separate it from the rest of the mane and hold it upright. Cross the yarn behind the strand of hair. Pick up a second strand of hair slightly less in bulk than the first strand. Cross the two strands of hair over the mane roll. Cross the yarn over the crossed hair. Now you will need to add additional hair from the mane to the strand which crossed downward toward the neck. The added hair ties the mane roll to the horse’s neck. The strand of mane needs to be chosen from the center to keep the roll on top of the crest and visible from both sides of the horse.
The quantity of hair in the braid needs to be of uniform size in order to maintain a nice even pattern of hair and mane roll. The crossing of the mane roll and the hair needs to be done in the same sequence all the way down the neck to produce the plait.
Continue crossing the yarn and hair in the same order as you began and follow this pattern, adding a small amount of hair each time to maintain the equal bulk for a smooth job. Take care all the time to hold the hand close to the mane and keep hair and yarn pulled tight to ensure a hard, tight roll but not so tight as to hamper the moving of the neck and head.
On hitch horses you will want to break off about at he point of the shoulder. Increase the amount of hair that you pick up a slight bit three or four stitches before breaking off in order to have an adequate amount of hair to braid down the side of the neck after breaking off. After breaking off it is not desirable to add any more hair because the braid could not then be freely thrown over the hame. The same length roll should be of sufficient length to dress the mane of a halter horse, however you should continue farther back on the crest of the halter horse.
Break off in a gentle arc from the point of the shoulder on back to a point even with the elbow of the leg. Tie the end of the roll by a simple slip knot with one strand of mane roll around the other. Cut the mane roll evenly about five inches below the knot
We believe five flowers evenly spaced are sufficient for a hitch horse and we like seven to nine on a halter horse, but this is up to individual taste.