Grooming your horse is a time for bonding, as well as just keeping in tune with what is going on with your horse.......

Basic grooming tools should be a good stiff body brush, to remove unwanted hair and dirt. A rubber curry which not only delivers a good brushing, but a nice massage, a shedding blade to help the horse shed his undercoat in the warmer months, a sweat scraper which will remove sweat from a horse after exercising and a hoof pick. You also need a metal curry comb, but you use that only to clean your other brushes, not on the horses. I also keep soft cloths and lots of empty spray bottles handy. You never know when you need them.

Horses don't get their teeth brushed, but they do get them floated. Your vet will do an exam of your horse's mouth and if the teeth show points, the horse will be mildly sedated and the vet will manually file down the points. Also if your horse has what is called "wolf teeth" the vet will pull these teeth out, as they are deemed unneccessary for horses who are not out in the wild.

Once you get into horse care and learn more. You will find out about sheath cleaning (if you have a gelding) not a pleasant job, but a neccessary one to perform.

You will also learn about braiding the mane and tail, clipping the hair around the ears and the feet. "banging" the tail- which just means putting shape in the tail, and wrapping the tail and removing the chestnuts or ergots on the legs (horny growths that horses have). But for just basic grooming, you are set and ready to go.