Types of Mane Braids

1. Banding is a way to keep your horse’s mane looking neat and secure while showing in western classes. How to band is probably the simplest out of all the braids and styles that you can choose to use and I will talking about in this post. It is straight forward, so all you need to do is make sure your horse's mane is free of tangles, and then you can start my picking up a little bit of hair and tying a small rubber band around it. If you pull the hairs in the back of the band, you just made then it pulls it a little flatter to the horse and makes it sleeker. You will just need to do this all the way down the mane and put one or two in the forelock and then you are done.

2. Braiding is just like banding only takes a little more time to do and practice. You will normally see this done for English shows. You split up the hair into equal parts as you did with banding. Then you will braid a section and tie it at the end. With some string or yarn, you will pull the braid up under itself to have a flawless finish. After you make a knot and it feels secure, than you can move onto the next section. Continue this process until you have the mane all braided and pulled up. You will need to make sure that the string you pick matches your horse’s mane, so it is not noticeable and it looks like the braids.