Let's talk fake tails.

First, my apologies for the walls of text I've been writing. I didn't notice that blogger isn't inserting a paragraph break when I double space. Oops.

I've never used fake tails before. It's not exactly something that's done for dressage, and that's pretty much the extent of my showing. The show I went to with Gulliver, an open AQHA show (yes, I DID bring a Hanoverian to a QH show...we were sore thumbs, although a little girl was kind enough to say "I like your horse!"), I saw tons and I had never even seen it before that time.

I'm kind of 50/50 on the idea. Amber has a nice enough tail, I'd call it average - it looks a million times better than when I got her, and banging it has improved the look of it.

From this:

To this (super thick looking here):

To this (not as thick in appearance because the growth is thinner near the bottom and I've been mostly trimming the bottom trying to leave the length):

I was clipping the top of her tail. I've mentioned before about how I refuse to pull a tail because that's a completely different area of nerves than a mane (and I am even too lazy to deal with mane pulling). But I'm highly considering putting some MTG on it and letting it grow out over the winter. That way, if we decided to fool around with hunters for fun, we don't be a couple of sore thumbs and obvious cross-overs.

Right now it's at an awkward stage where it looks bushy and half grown out. Not that I need to make a choice right away, because it can look like that and be no consequence to us since we aren't showing immediately. But if I want decent growth over the winter I think I'm going to need to MTG it...

But I will deviate for a moment. I've been thinking about getting a fake tail for Amber for next spring. They are reasonably priced on ebay (but are all of these created equal?). I just don't want to have the ridiculous upside-down V shape tail. I want something a little more discreet that will still give her the big, full tail look.

Or as one of the teenagers at the barn put it, "That's what's winning!". Casey pointed out that it's not the tail, that's the type-y QH hunters that are winning that happen to have fake tails. Fake tails won't win you anything (well, with fair judges anyway), but let's face it - a full tail just looks nice.

Amber doesn't have the most glamorous hind end. That's where the majority of her conformational flaws are. A fuller tail would help to off set these flaws. But after some googling, I'm hesitant. It's like they're the joke of shows. It seems the ones that aren't hundreds of $$, which as far as I've seen are about equal, actually do look worse when braided in. On top of this, I'd need help learning how to put it in nicely...I don't know anyone who does the fake tail deal personally. I saw some that looked nice, and could have been real unless I'd known what I was looking at. How much those cost, I don't know. The MTG might thicken up her natural tail considerably if I bag it.

I just don't want to end up drawing bad attention to her hind end, or end up making her tail a distraction. That seems to be another issue with fake tails.