The Brush Bag That Lives by My Barn Door

There is a five-gallon bucket that used to sit just inside my barn door. It held every brush I owned, which sounds tidier than it was. Half of them were worn nearly flat. One had a handle cracked down the middle that would pinch the web of your hand if you grabbed it wrong. And the hoof pick was always at the bottom, under everything else, so I stood in the aisle with Ranger tied to the post, digging for it like a raccoon in a trash can.

I bought the Weaver Equine 7-piece grooming kit with the tote in early June of this year. That is five months of use as I write this in November. The tote hangs on a hook just inside the barn door now, and the bucket went out to the dry lot to hold fence staples.

Ranger is my one horse, a 14-year-old sorrel gelding, 15.1 hands and about 1,050 pounds, with a blaze and one white sock on the left hind. I ride him Western, trail only, three or four times a week in good weather and one longer group ride a month. He gets groomed before every ride and most days in between. In an Arkansas July he sweats through the cinch area and down his neck, and that is when a curry comb earns its keep and a worn-out one shows it.

The kit's pieces are a comb, a hoof pick, a mane and tail brush, a palm-held curry comb and a palm-held face brush, all in a nylon tote with six outer pockets. The tote is oblong, about 9.4 by 9.2 by 6.6 inches, with webbing handles. I keep the hoof pick in one outside pocket now, pointed down, where my hand goes straight to it. The mane and tail brush has horse hair bristles and works through the burrs he picks up on the gravel road without pulling half his tail out with them.

The palm-held brushes were the part I did not expect to care about. They sit in your hand instead of in your fist, so I can work around his face and down the front of his legs without a handle poking him. Ranger is calm on the trail and a little herd-sour leaving the barn, and grooming is the one time he stands still and drops his head. He drops it for the face brush.

I have not dug for a hoof pick since June. It lives in an outside pocket now, and my hand goes straight to it.

Once a month I wash the brushes in a bucket of warm soapy water and set them bristles-down on the tack room windowsill to dry in the sun. The handles are nylon and the bodies are plastic, so they come clean and go back in the bag the same afternoon. I have not had a bristle pull out of the mane and tail brush yet, and the tote has not torn at the handle seam, which is more than I can say for the feed sack that stood in for the bucket for about two weeks.

Two things I would change. The tote has webbing handles and no shoulder strap, so it is handy hanging on a hook and awkward carried out to the trailer by hand. And I still keep one old stiff brush for March mud, the kind that dries on and needs an edge to it. The kit covers everything else, and the comb takes the mud off his back before I go at him with the curry.

It has been to two group rides this fall. It rides on the truck seat beside me, and because the pieces have pockets of their own, the hoof pick does not slide under the seat and the face brush does not end up in the hay. On farrier mornings the pick is the first thing out of the bag, which is a small thing that saves me five minutes of standing in the aisle with my head down.

Before June my brushes were mismatched and half were past the point of doing the job. I was using a body brush on his mane because I did not have a proper mane brush. That is the sort of thing you put up with for years and never quite notice. The Weaver Equine kit fixed it in one order, and the tote keeps the pieces where I can see them instead of at the bottom of a bucket.

If you have one horse and a pile of brushes that has accumulated from feed store sales and gifts, this replaces all of it. If you show and already have a groom box set up the way you like it, you probably do not need it. I am not a trainer and I do not play one. I am a woman with one horse, a pole barn and a hook by the door.

What I'd Tell You If We Were Sitting at My Kitchen Table

First, hang the bag where you groom. Not in the tack room, not in the trailer. Mine hangs on a hook just inside the barn door, and because it is right there I actually put the brushes back in it. Second, wash them. Warm water, a little soap, bristles-down in the sun on the windowsill. Brushes that stay dirty go stiff and quit working, and that is not the brush's fault.

Third, if your horse is like mine, put your money into the everyday things you touch twice a day and leave the fancy things for the people who use them twice a year. Earl does not ride and thinks a bucket is a bucket. He is right about most things. He is wrong about this one.