If you follow me on instagram you will have seen me complete the #thehorseriderschallenge a couple of months ago. If you don’t know what #thehorseriderschallenge is, I wrote a blog all about it which you can find here.
Within the challenge was to post about your grooming kit. The lovely ladies at Glaze & Gordon saw my post of my grooming kit and how I wanted/needed to update my brushes. So they got in touch to see whether I would like to review the brushes they have on their website. I already loved the look of so many of the products they have on offer so of course I took them up on their offer!
What do you get?
The Sommer grooming brush set consists of the 4 brushes, “Felix mud brush”, the “Jay body brush”, the “Otto shine brush” and the “Brock finishing brush”. The brushes are all beautifully made, with wooden backs (choice of light or dark wood) and leather handles with either boar and horse hair bristles depending on the brush. They are priced at £59.00 for the set however, you can buy the brushes individually if you wanted to.
First Impressions.
The first thing I noticed about the brushes was the quality of them. You know when you pick up something and you just know it is well made, this is what you feel when you pick up a Sommer grooming brush. The wooden backs are lovely and the stamped leather handles finish off the brushes beautifully. The bristles are secure and their are plenty of them, I don’t think they will be falling out anytime soon.
The second was how nicely they sit in your hands. They are all ergonomically made so they fit in your hand beautifully which makes grooming your horse very comfortable.
I currently don’t have my own horse (I’m working on it) but I do however have friends with horses. I trialed these brushes on Gorgeous George at the yard where I keep the children’s ponies. George is a horse who is kept on full livery, he is predominately a hunter who was dabbling in eventing however he is very laid back and wasn’t making the time so he has started his showing career as a ridden/working hunter horse. I think he should win every time because, well he’s just gorgeous! But you never know with showing do you.
Anyway, I digress, back to the brushes.
I have been using the brushes on George for the last month or so and I have really seen an improvement in his coat and shine coming through. As with my first impressions the brushes are so easy to use, they fit snuggly in your hand so you can really put some welly into your grooming without fear that the brush is going to fall out of your hand. Everyone who has had a quick go with the brushes at the yard have all remarked about how nice they feel in your hand.
A bit about each brush.
The “Felix mud brush” I have been using on George’s legs to get stable stains off as at the moment with this crazy heatwave we are having in England their is definitely no mud about. The brush has worked well to get the ever present stable stains off his legs as the bristles have a good length and are firm but with the perfect amount of give in them to scrub the legs without fear of irritating the skin. I found it was fantastic to use on the knobbly bit of the legs such as the knees, hocks and fetlocks. I can imagine when we do finally get some rain and mud that it would flick dried mud off very well too.
The “Jay body brush” is super at bringing out the dust and grime out of the coat. I have been amazed at how much dirt has been coming out of George’s coat for a horse that is stabled and with a sheet on! You can really see a difference in the coat after just a quick flick over with this brush. Super for when you are short of time.
The “Otto shine brush” I think is my favourite brush out of the set. The bristles which are made of horse hair are super soft and it really does bring out a beautiful shine in the coat. It distributes the oil from root of the hair across the coat whilst removing the finer bits of dust that have been left behind by the body brush.
And finally the “Brock finishing brush”. I was a bit sceptical about this brush when I first saw it as the bristles on it are a lot shorter and firmer than the other brushes and I thought how is this going to bring out a shine?! But it really does, it lies the hairs down in position whilst bringing out the gleaming shine you want ready for the show ring.
When I first started using the set I did spend quite a bit of time using each brush as I am used to just using a curry comb and a “flicky brush” so the grooming routine did take some time. I initially thought that it was a lot of work to use each brush however, I quickly learnt that you didn’t need to spend a great deal of time with each brush as they are all designed to do different aspects of the routine. They work so well together that your grooming routine needn’t take ages, unless you want it to that is. The two brushes that I thought worked particularly well together were the “Jay Body Brush” and the “Otto Shine Brush”.
Overall, as you can tell, I think the brushes are really lovely, fantastic quality and well worth the money. If you are interested in purchasing the Sommer grooming brush set you can find it here at the Glaze & Gordon website. Also, don’t forget to follow them on their social media platforms (facebook, Instagram, and Twitter) to keep up to date with new products and competitions!
(A big thank you to Phoenix Livery for letting me use George as a model to test the brushes out on.)
The Farriers Wife 
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