Chiseling My Horse Out of His Mud Cast

When I got to the barn last night, I realized I'd forgotten my bridle at home.  I thought I might lunge instead, and then I saw my mud-covered, hairy, dirty, possibly feral horse:

Who you calling feral?

And remembered suddenly that The Clinic is one week from today.  Honestly with all of this new job stuff, I hadn't forgotten it was coming up, but I had forgotten it was so close.

Ombre highlights?  Nope, just mud on flaxen.

And I thought...maybe taking the night off to do some grooming isn't such a bad idea.

Just...how do they even do this?

Since they'll be in the rest of the week thanks to:

Deeeeeelightful.

I judged that it wasn't a total waste of time to do a first pass on feathers and tail.  So we did that and some mane pulling. 

Unfortunately there's nothing I can do about him looking like a moth-eaten mottled half-seal brown/half chestnut whatever he is right now as his summer coat starts to come in just the tiniest bit:

Or if you DO know of something I can do to make this look better, holla.  Wish he still looked like this:

This was good.

I also started to pull his mane.

It's not the last big grooming we'll do before next week, but we had to start somewhere as we come out of winter hibernation!