Preparing for Show Season: Helping Your Horse Look Good & Perform Well

Getting ready for show season is a mix of excitement and hard work to ensure your horse looks and performs at their best. Alongside clipping, trimming, and washing, it's essential to prepare for the physical demands of returning to work.

Key Highlights

• Working with your horse’s natural hair growth cycle makes it easier to maintain coat condition across the show season.
• Musculo skeletal fitness can drop off quickly in horses leading to discomfort and minor injury when bring back to work.
• A slow and steady build up to work can help horses regain strength, agility and stamina.
• Include hand work in your build up routine can help to bring a hot horse’s adrenaline levels down.
• Travel can be stressful for horses which is why we make natural remedies to help with motion sickness and anxiety around loading and unloading.
• Hippo Health make natural remedies to help horses and riders prepare for show season, and manage the stresses and strains of competition.

Getting ready for show season involves more than just physical training and grooming. By integrating natural remedies into your routine, you can help ensure both you and your horse look and feel your best.

Introduction

In this blog post, we’ll explore the natural remedies in our Shows & Performance range for horses – and a few remedies for riders too - that can help both horses and riders get ready for a successful show season.

Understanding a horse's hair growth cycle

Achieving a show-ready mane and coat involves understanding your horse’s natural hair growth cycle. Hair growth in horses usually follows a three-week cycle, so it’s important to start your grooming regime well in advance of your first show day – we recommend at least four weeks.

Natural remedies for a healthy coat

If your horse's coat is looking dull or has lost quality, try our Sheen Plus Equine remedy. This remedy supports gut health to promote the absorption of essential vitamins and minerals already present in feed. It can be used on horses of all hair types and is competition and racing safe (not swab-able).

Support for Mane and Tail Growth

Our Manes & Tails remedy is formulated specifically to support the growth of normal, healthy hair. Just like Sheen Plus, this remedy supports the uptake of vitamins and minerals in the everyday diet that give hair a healthy gloss and sheen. (And if you’re thinking you could do with something similar – give our Healthy Hair & Nails remedy for people a try!)

Both Sheen Plus and Manes & Tails can be dosed via the water trough, making it economical to dose more than one horse.

Building Musculo-Skeletal Fitness

Bringing a horse back in after an extended period of time off requires a slow and steady build-up to help them regain strength, agility and stamina. Your horse may have got a little chunkier, or have lost some condition over the winter months. It’s important to reassess their feed, and to refit your saddles as their condition changes.

Musculo skeletal fitness in horses can drop off quite quickly and take time to come back. Even with a slow and steady build up to work, a horse may experience sore muscles or joint discomfort and may tire more easily. Their age and previous fitness level can be a factor in how quickly they become show ready, but we also have a few remedies that can help.

Remedies for Muscle & Joint Support

Performance Plus – Equine is formulated to assist horses’ normal physiological response to periods of increased or strenuous exertion, jarring or muscle strain and inflammation. This remedy can be given prior to exercise, and then again after exertion.

Joints Plus – Equine supports horses experiencing stiff or sore joints due to the exertion of training or competing at shows, events and competitions.

Managing a hot horse

Often horses come back in with a little excess energy to burn. Doing hand work can help to get their brain focused and bring their adrenaline levels down.

Everyday Calmatives & Situational Support

Our Chilled Out Horse remedy is an every day calmative that can help to take the edge off. Spook Buster is formulated for horses that experience panic or adrenaline fuelled responses to the wind, unfamiliar objects or visits from the vet or farrier. And for when show season starts, our Show Calm remedy can be used to support horses who get overwhelmed by loudspeakers, flapping flags or unfamiliar surroundings.

We have a whole range of remedies to support horses showing anxiety-related behaviour in specific situations. They all calm without sedating and are competition and racing safe (not swab-able). Read this blog post to find out which of our calming remedies is right for your horse.

Travelling with your horse

There’s no avoiding the need to travel with your horse during show season. Some horses find the motion of travel stressful, while for others it’s the loading and unloading that causes all the stress.

Remedies for horses with travel-related anxiety

Our Easy Traveller – Equine is an anxiety supplement formulated specifically for the physiological response some horses have to travel. It can be used as a preventative prior to travelling or to provide rapid relief from acute symptoms. Our 90ml pump bottle format is the perfect size for keeping on hand in your truck or float.  

If motion sickness is something you also experience, give our Travel Well remedy for people a try!

Remedies for Riders

Whether you need to calm your own show nerves, recover from exertion, get a good nights’ sleep on the road or manage the effects of over indulging while away from home, we’ve got you covered. Read this blog post to find out more about the remedies in our Shows & Performance range for riders.

Final thoughts on preparing for show season. 

Preparing for show season is about more than just grooming and gear—it’s about supporting your horse’s health and wellbeing from the inside out. A thoughtful routine, combined with natural remedies, can help both horse and rider feel confident and ready to perform. Wishing you all a safe and successful show season!