Hair, hair, everywhere! This time of year, a shedding horse is a mobile mess maker, leaving hair on you, your tack, your car, your world. If you want to speed up the month-long shedding process, try one or more of the following hair-removal tactics:

1. Give a late-season full-body clip. Shear off the shaggy coat a month before shedding season begins; the shorter hair will be less of a torment when it does fall out. Remember to blanket the newly clipped horse if the weather stays cool.

2. Apply some old-fashioned elbows grease. Control the timing of mess and shorten its duration by going over the horse with a currycomb or shedding blade during vigorous daily grooming sessions. Those lengthy daily sessions collect the worst of the hair in one area and can shorten the shedding season by a week or more.

3. Pour on the oil. Empty an entire bottle of baby oil over your horse, making sure to cover his legs and belly. After leaving the horse oiled for an overnight soak, give him a warm-water shampoo. The oil encourages dead hair to slide from the follicles. The procedure itself makes one big mess but gets it all over with in a hurry. The oil treatment works so well, in fact, that some recipients can look rather bald for a few weeks afterward.