The Shredding Blade

For those of you not familiar with them, a "Shredding Blade" is an essential piece of kit for horse owners. They are also known as "Leicester Blades" after where they are made. They consist of a strip of flexible steel about a foot long one side of which is serrated like the teeth of a saw. It is used for scraping out and scraping off dead hair and scurf from a horse's coat at the end of winter to make way for their summer coats to come through.

Years ago at a yard where we liveried our horses a new client arrived with her horse. You know the type?

"I'm new here and I know everything there is to know about horses and how to look after them. Look at mine,,,isn't he just gorgeous?". The type who pretended to listen but never heard a word being spoken to her and her monologues were overloaded with superlatives. And, to be brutally honest was not what you would call "the sharpest hoof pick in the grooming box".

Henceforth she shall be known as "Newbie".

This one day in the spring sunshine I had brought one of our horses, Rainbow, in for some well deserved and overdue pampering including treatment with the shredding blade. I was using it quite vigorously and was managing to get a lot of loose hair and scurf off.

I am sure I am not the only one amongst the horse owning fraternity who finds this quite a satisfying way to groom a horse, give it a massage, spend some quality time with them and have a bit of a work out for the upper arms and shoulders.

Newbie arrived with her horse which she tied up next to me. She started to groom and talk. "I've done this", "I've done that", "My last instructor thought my horse was wonderful" and "We must go out for a hack together".

I made polite sounds of acknowledgement while I carried on grooming.

"Oh, that looks good. What is it?" Newbie asked.

I explained what it was and what I was doing with it.

"Oh, I’ll have to get one" Newbie replied.

Attached to the yard was an office where riding school clients came in to book and check in for their rides. Behind the office was a small shop which sold riding clothes, tack and grooming kit equipment. Whoever was running the desk also had to run the shop. This particular day it was the yard owner's son, Richard, who was in charge.

"They'll probably have one over at the shop if you pop over there" I said.

"Oh good. I'll go over there now to get one. Could you keep an eye on Sunny for a few minutes while I am gone?" at which Newbie started to leg it over to the office.

Now, there is one thing I hate and that is when someone imposes the care of their horse on me while they disappear "for a few minutes" especially when they were heading to the office or the shop. Those "few minutes" could become ages and I may want to get on with something else with our horse. Or, the horse which is unknown to me, may kick off and become dangerous if its owner disappears. I had little choice but to accept the imposition.

"OK, I'll watch him while you are away. By the way. Are you left or right handed? It's just that if you are left handed Richard may not have one and have to order one for you."

"I'm left handed. Thanks for the tip. Won't be long" I heard from the disappearing Newbie.

Five minutes later Newbie returned when I was sweeping up all the hair I had removed from Rainbow.

"Well?" I asked.

"I told Richard I need a left handed one and bless him...he looked through all the stock in the shop and in the stockroom but couldn't find one. He says he will order one on Monday and it should be here by next weekend."

Then she saw that I had made a pile of brown hair and a pile of grey hair.

"Why do you do that with the hair?" Newbie asked.

"Ah, what we do is the brown hair goes straight on to the muck heap and we take the white hair home in a carrier bag, put it in the garden and the birds come and collect it for their nests" I said.

"No, you're not serious are you? I've never heard of that. Is that for real?" Newbie replied in disbelief.

After I cleared up I went over to the office for a coffee from the mingy old machine. Richard was sitting behind the desk and looked up at me.

"You utter bastard! You will be going to hell in a handcart one day. Didn't Newbie realise by the time she got back to you?"

"Nope. Anyway, you played your part. She thought you were marvellous checking through the stock. And what's worse she didn't believe that the birds only take the grey hair for their nests."