Some people love clipping, some hate it, and some are literally allergic to it!
I actually don’t mind it, but I do find it time consuming.
My mom actually was a professional dog groomer when I was growing up so I have learned a lot about good clipping and clipper care over the years!
Here are my best tips for a good clip:
Start with a dry and squeaky clean horse. Dirt and skin oils will gunk up your clippers very quickly and affect the quality of your clip job.
Try to hold your clippers at the same angle along the horse's skin so you don’t end up with different lengths of hair.
Follow the grain of the hair, when we clip horses, we clip against the grain. Don’t worry about matching your strokes, but follow the hair and take as few strokes as possible to minimize the number of lines on your horse.
Start with clean and oiled blades but be careful not to over oil. Oil will collect all the dirt and gunk up your blades so you want just enough for them to slide. On my small clippers I will slide the top part over, put a drop on each section I need to oil and then lightly blot excess with a towel.
If your blades themselves are making track marks but are sharp, your clippers might need a new lever. The little plastic piece that makes your clippers go back and forth gets worn down and needs to be replaced after time. It’s easy to replace and you can find the part where clippers are sold.
If this is a task you choose to take on yourself and your horse ends up looking like a road map, remember the difference between a good clip job and a bad one is two weeks, plan accordingly!