Taming the Icelandic Horse’s Double Coat and Heavyweight Mane

Few breeds hand a groom this much hair to deal with. Icelandic horses grow a dense double coat built for brutal winters, shed it dramatically each spring, and carry a mane, forelock and tail that grow thick and long by design. The real job isn't styling any of it — it's managing the sheer volume.

Icelandic horses carry more coat than almost any other breed a groom will ever handle. There's a dense, insulating undercoat built for real winter cold, a spring moult that dumps out enough loose hair to stuff a pillow, and a mane, forelock and tail so long and thick they've basically become the breed's trademark. Grooming one well has very little to do with styling for the show ring. It's a volume problem. You need to wash the body without stripping the natural grease that keeps the coat weatherproof, dry a coat dense enough to hold water for hours after a bath, and detangle a heavy mane and tail without snapping hair off at the roots. In practice: a gentle, purifying body wash such as revive-shampoo suits the coat, reluxe-maintail-shampoo handles the everyday mane and tail wash, and refresh-maintail-cream comes in once a week as a richer, deeper treatment for all that famously abundant hair.

A coat built for Icelandic winters, not quick baths

That coat is doing real work, not just growing for show. Underneath the visible outer hair sits a dense layer of fine, insulating undercoat, and over it grows a coarser, longer guard hair that sheds rain and snow. Together the two let the breed live outdoors through weather that would leave a thin-coated horse shivering. The trade-off is volume. A fairly compact, stocky-looking Icelandic is often carrying two or three times the coat mass of a similarly sized warmblood, and that's exactly what catches groomers out. A wash that rinses clean on a finer-coated horse in a couple of minutes can leave shampoo sitting deep in an Icelandic's coat if you rush the job, and a quick towel-off that would dry a Thoroughbred in an hour can leave an Icelandic damp at the skin long after the topcoat looks dry. Climate doesn't change any of this, either. A native Icelandic living out in Reykjavik and one stabled in a milder yard abroad both grow the same dense double coat on the same seasonal clock, so the same washing and drying discipline applies wherever the horse actually lives.

Washing the body without stripping the coat's own oils

The natural grease sitting in an Icelandic's coat is part of its weatherproofing, so a harsh, stripping shampoo works against the horse rather than for it. Revive Shampoo is built as a restorative, daily-type body wash using plant oils and magnesium, formulated to purify the coat and lift ingrained dirt without stripping it bare. That matters more here than on a lighter-coated breed, simply because there's more coat holding onto both the dirt and the oils underneath it. As with any breed carrying this much hair, restraint on frequency is part of good practice. For a general steer on how often washing actually needs to happen, our how often to wash a horse guide is worth reading alongside this one — over-washing a double coat can undo more good than an occasional bath ever does.

Drying a coat this dense

Getting an Icelandic properly dry after a wash takes longer than it looks like it should. This is where most washing mistakes actually happen — not in the shampoo choice, but in what comes after. Run a sweat scraper firmly with the lie of the coat and you'll pull off the bulk of the water fast, before it soaks any deeper into the undercoat. Follow that with a proper toweling pass, not a token rub, and you'll be surprised how much moisture still comes out. After that, air movement matters more than heat. A breezy spot, a fan, or simply time standing loose rather than being rugged straight away all help the deep undercoat finish drying instead of trapping damp against the skin — exactly the kind of environment that invites skin irritation on a horse already carrying this much hair. Rugging a still-damp Icelandic, especially in cooler weather, is one of the more common mistakes with this breed. It feels efficient, but it usually just means the horse spends the next several hours damp under a rug instead of drying properly in the open. Our winter coat and mane care guide covers this drying discipline in more depth for anyone grooming through the colder months.

Mane, forelock and tail — the signature Icelandic feature

The mane, forelock and tail are where the Icelandic really sets itself apart, and they need a routine of their own, separate from the body. For everyday washing, reluxe-maintail-shampoo is built specifically for mane and tail with castor and jojoba oils, cleaning without leaving the hair stripped or flyaway — a sensible default given how much hair there is to keep clean. Once a week, or before a show or a particularly muddy patch of weather, refresh-maintail-cream steps in as a genuinely rich, deep treatment using avocado and olive oils. Work it through from mid-length to the ends to ease out the tangles that build up in hair this dense and this long. Fingers do more good than a brush for the first detangling pass. Working through knots by hand, section by section, before any comb or brush touches the hair, reduces breakage considerably compared with brushing straight into a snarl. Give the forelock particular attention too — on many Icelandics it grows thick enough to sit right over the eyes, and a build-up of grease or sweat underneath is easy to miss without a deliberate check.

Grooming through the spring moult

The spring shed on an Icelandic is anything but subtle. Daily grooming through this period earns its keep. A shedding tool or rubber curry used in short, unhurried sessions clears loose undercoat far more efficiently than one big occasional push, and it's kinder to the horse than letting mats of half-shed hair build up against the skin. These daily sessions double as a genuinely useful chance to run your hands over the skin properly — a coat this thick can hide small lumps, scurfy patches or areas of heat that would be obvious on a finer-coated horse.

A simple seasonal routine

• Wash the body with revive-shampoo only as often as the coat genuinely needs it, then dry thoroughly with a scraper, towel and plenty of air movement
• Use reluxe-maintail-shampoo for the regular mane and tail wash alongside body washing
• Work refresh-maintail-cream through the mane and tail weekly, or before turnout in wet weather, to ease out tangles before they set
• Hand-groom daily through the spring moult, and use each session as a chance to check the skin underneath all that coat
• Take a close look under a thick forelock and along the mane and tail base for soreness or unusual hair loss beyond normal shedding

None of this needs to be complicated. An Icelandic's coat and mane are simply bigger jobs than most breeds present, and the routine above is really just ordinary good grooming stretched to match that volume: wash gently, dry properly, detangle by hand before a brush ever gets near it, and use the moult season as a chance to look closely at the skin rather than just clearing hair off a rug. If the coat still looks flat or lifeless once the moult has finished and this routine is being followed consistently, it's worth a read of our dull, lifeless coat guide — persistent dullness can sometimes point to something worth checking beyond the grooming kit.