Each of your horse's hairs speaks volumes about his overall health. | Photo: Alexandra Beckstett/The Horse

Beautiful hair is a widely sought-after commodity. Just look at the millions of dollars people spend on various hair treatments. Britney Spears alone reportedly spends more than $60,000 on personal grooming expenses every year! Horses are similarly pampered and preened, as evidenced by the fact that nutritional supplements marketed for skin and coat are the fifth most popular type of equine supplement sold in the United States, accounting for approximately $58 million dollars in sales each year. 

This article focuses on some common aberrations in your horse’s hair coat. Examples include failure to shed, balding, graying, and the itching and crusting that might lie beneath the hairs. We’ll also briefly review beauty basics, what your horse’s hair actually is made of, and what purposes those teeny tresses serve. 

Mary, Mary Quite Contrary—How Does Your Hair Grow?

Considering how difficult hair can be to manage, whether your own tough-to-tame tresses or your horses’ braid-resistant locks, its structure is actually quite simple. Hair grows from follicles in the skin, and each strand has a center (the medulla), a middle layer (the cortex), and an outer layer (the cuticle). Horses have three different kinds of hair: permanent hair of the forelock, mane, tail, eyelashes, and “feathers” (what’s seen in Clydes and some of our other draft horse friends); temporary hair covering most of the body that the horse sheds intermittently/seasonally; and tactile hair on the muzzle and in the ears