Talk:Mane (horse)

lack of care

lack of care also prevents hairs from splitting and breaking

How can lack of care prevent hairs from splitting? The Wednesday Island (talk) 18:37, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, that did sound weird, especially in the lead, so I tossed it. However, I think the point trying to be made is that some people who brush and comb a horse's mane to excess (especially with a mane comb) can wind up, just like human hair that gets over-styled, with split ends. Most folks trying to grow a super long mane keep it braided all the time, and very carefully hand-pick it out when unbraiding and rebraiding. I'll give the article a more thorough look over later and see if that detail is mentioned eleswhere. Montanabw^(talk) 17:53, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Number of Plaits

Please can we have a verifiable source for the differentiation in even/odd plaits according to the sex of the horse? I have always understood that regardless of the sex of the horse it must be an odd number of plaits; even is considered unlucky. Nick 3216 (talk) 19:59, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I'll go find the source. I think there are about as many theories for plaiting/braiding as there are nations. I've seen minimum and maximum numbers of braids, specific numbers of braids, many. many traditions, varying by region or nation. Montanabw^(talk) 03:25, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm not getting the point.....

Ok, so what is the point of this article? WHO is wondering what a mane is? This sounds like an article on braiding to me.....

ANYway, let's just say it had a point. How do you cite for this? Maybe you could on the part about braiding, but it seems like there isn't much to cite (maybe that's why there are none).

My question is, should this article exist? It's pointless (to me anyway), has no citations, and it's poorly written.

Not trying to be mean (I didn't mean this as sarcastic as it turned out), just something to think about......

☆dream on☆dance on☆ —Preceding undated comment added 18:55, 14 October 2010 (UTC).

LOL! It was a spin-off from horse grooming. Because this is you, we won't take offense, but maybe be a little careful with words like "pointless" eh?? (smile) And I happened to be the person who spun it off, though I didn't do a lot of the original writing. It isn't a how-to so much as a viewer's guide. It COULD use some cleanup, as it was put together 2 or 3 years ago with wikipedia's standards were a little looser (as are so many articles). FWIW, we have also added tail (horse), rump (animal), and forelock. Oh yes, and let's not forget Horsehair! Montanabw^(talk) 23:45, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Pulled manes

I swapped out the tori horse photo because it may have once had its mane pulled, but it was all scraggly and half-grown out. I put in a better example, though I admit it isn't a good quality photo. Maybe this one could be cropped and work better: File:Tori sport horse.jpg. It's a messy job, and may have been cut more than pulled, but at least it's the right length and maybe easier than the black horse for readers to see. I like the one I just added for being nicely done, but... Montanabw^(talk) 22:32, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Been doing a little searching on Commons. Pitke (talk) 08:38, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Media related to Pulled mane at Wikimedia Commons

Well, on a cursory glance, the most show-ready one is File:Almanaque.jpg, and it's got that old-fashioned pulled tail, too, but I'm a little worried about its licensing. The File:Tori sport horse.jpg one is probably safer in licensing, and was my second choice to the photo I put in there, but he DOES have that one cowlick. The rest are a touch on the scraggly-and-time-to-redo side. Which do you think best (or others) Montanabw^(talk) 01:11, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Went through Japanese race horses, found this: File:Perfect Joy Australia-blinkers.jpg. Not that much "couldn't bother pulling all the way so made use of scissors" as some others? Better sharpness if a dark horse. Pitke (talk) 09:57, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

When you put it at thumbnail size, is it better quality than the black horse that's in there? (I work off a laptop, they're all dinky at thumbnail size to me). If so, OK w/me to swap. Those Japanese racehorse shots are handy for a lot of things, aren't they? Colors, tack, whoever shot 'em, I'm grateful! Montanabw^(talk) 04:15, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

History of braided manes

I'm a little confused about the history given in the first paragraph of "Braiding(US)/Plaiting(UK)", and I'm really hoping for anyone with verifiably referenced info to step forward.

My ex wasn't the greatest source of accurate info (hence, being an ex!) but he rode with the Fanfare and was always pretty clear that historically in the army, only "gentlemen" were allowed to have horses with full-flowing manes, and eventually, full manes became a more generic military privilege. I can't find a source that explicitly confirms this whole chronology, but the elite mounted unit for India, the President's Bodyguard at http://presidentofindia.nic.in/presidentsbodyguards.html does say that a full mane is a notably unusual privilege or honor for horse regiments. Backing this up, all the army horses I can remember had braided or trimmed manes for "line" or "yeoman" cavalry and full manes for "household" cavalry. My ex told me he thought (but wasn't sure) the reason that braiding became popular in competitive riding was that when equestrianism at the Olympics was opened up to civilian riders in 1952, civilians were expected to braid or trim their horse manes instead of intruding on the military privilege of sporting full-flowing horse manes, and that as the number of civilians overtook the number of military riders, it became normal for spectators to see all the riders at the highest levels of the sport using braided manes, leading riders everywhere to copy the practise.

It's possible that there are many different traditions and historical sources that have independently led to mane braiding and trimming, and so I guess the existing paragraph and my ex's version could both be correct simultaneously (or both wrong simultaneously!). Quite apart from history, there are a lot of straightforward practical advantages to braiding and trimming. But it is strange that one history suggests that braiding manes originated as a sign of a distinguised horse, and one history suggests that they originated as a sign of undistinguished riders.

If anyone has a reference to an authoritative source on this, please make the appropriate edit.

WarlanderHorse (talk) 20:25, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

It looks sketchy to me too, that said, I suspect braiding probably goes back to the dawn of domestication; if humans braided their hair, someone was going to braid a horse's mane as soon as they had enough mane to braid (My Little Pony, anyone??). So I just tossed it. Bold of me, but being around WP this long, I can tell from the wording (calling horses "he" all the time) that it probably originated with a now-inactive user who did a wonderful service to WP by creating dozens, if not hundreds, of horse, event, and tack articles. Unfortunately, said former user never sourced anything, because it wasn't as big a deal early on, and most of her work came from her own knowledge, which was usually pretty good, but not without its holes. So if someone thinks it should be in, I guess my take is like yours: find a source and it can return. Montanabw^(talk) 23:15, 8 September 2011 (UTC)