You definitely don’t need a hose or a tap nearby to give your horse a proper wash.
We use a bucket of water and our portable shower pump. Drop the pump in, switch it on, and you’ve got running water wherever the horses happen to be.
We’ve used ours after rides at Muriwai Beach, out in the bush, around the paddock and at home on the farm. It’s especially handy after a beach ride when you want to get the salt and sand out before heading home.
The pump pushes around 5 litres of water a minute at 25 PSI, so there’s enough pressure to actually rinse mud, sweat and sand out of the coat rather than just wetting the surface.
It’s rechargeable too, so there’s no power lead and nothing to plug in.
One of our customers, Kristina, put it pretty simply:
“Great washing mud off and to cool them off after a ride.”
What you need
You don’t need much.
A bucket of water, a portable shower pump, and some horse shampoo if they’re particularly grubby.
We use our Compass & Creek Shower Pump Kit, which comes with both a shower head and a more concentrated sprayer.
If you want warm water, you can also use our Solar Sac instead of a normal bucket.
How we wash ours
Fill your bucket or Solar Sac with water and drop the pump in.
The suction cups underneath the pump help hold it in place at the bottom.
Hold the power button for a couple of seconds to start it up. If you’re using warm water, check the temperature with your hand before putting it anywhere near your horse.
I normally start around the legs and let the horse get used to the water first.
The shower head has a flow control on it, so you can turn it right down if your horse is a bit unsure, then increase it once they’re comfortable.
From there, rinse over the body with the shower head.
For muddy legs, hooves or sand that’s really stuck in there, I swap to the sprayer. It gives you a narrower, stronger stream which is handy for those areas.
If you’re shampooing, switch the pump off while you scrub. It saves a surprising amount of water.
Once you’re finished, give everything a final rinse, towel the horse off if needed, then chuck the pump and hose into the mesh bag so they can dry properly.
The pump charges with USB-C, so we normally just top it up again when we get home.
How much water do you need?
The pump moves roughly 5 litres of water a minute at full flow.
So if you’ve got 20 litres of water, you’ll get around four minutes of continuous running time.
In reality, it usually lasts longer because you’re not standing there with the water running flat out the whole time.
You can turn the flow down at the shower head or simply switch the pump off while you shampoo or scrub.
We generally find around 20 litres is plenty for washing one horse.
One of our customers, Sonya, put it like this:
“I was able to wash 2 horses with the bucket.”
If you know you’ve got a seriously muddy horse on your hands, having a second bucket ready is never a bad idea.
What about warm water?
The pump itself doesn’t heat the water.
You can bring warm water from home, mix hot and cold water in your bucket, or use our Solar Sac.
On a good sunny day the Solar Sac can warm the water up to around 40°C, which is pretty nice for washing horses when the weather isn’t quite so warm.
Skye said it was exactly what they wanted, to be able to:
“wash ponies with warm water anywhere.”
Always check the water with your hand first.
The pump itself is fine sitting in water up to 60°C, but obviously you don’t want water anywhere near that temperature going onto a horse.
And if you’ve been riding at the beach, use fresh water for the wash. Getting the salt out of their coat is one of the main reasons we take ours along.
Can I really wash a horse without a hose?
Yep.
As long as you’ve got a bucket of water and a rechargeable pump, you can wash them pretty much anywhere.
The pump sits in the bucket and sends the water through the hose to the shower head or sprayer.
No tap and no power point needed.
Is the pump going to spook my horse?
We made the pump nice and quiet because the last thing you want is some screaming little motor sitting next to a horse.
Every horse is different of course, so introduce the water slowly if they haven’t used it before.
Skye, one of our customers, called the pump “quiet”.
I normally start with the flow turned down and rinse the legs first. Once they realise nothing exciting is happening, you can work your way up.
Is the pressure too strong?
For washing the body, I use the shower head.
It gives you a good rinse without blasting the horse, and you can adjust the amount of water using the flow control.
The sprayer is stronger, so I tend to save that for muddy legs, hooves and stubborn sand.
One slightly unexpected use
Our horses have also worked out that you can drink from the shower head.
I’m not sure that was part of the original design brief, but they seem pretty happy with it.
Compass & Creek Portable Shower Pump Kit
This is the same kit we use ourselves.
It’s rechargeable, portable and built to give you proper running water when there isn’t a tap anywhere nearby.
We originally built it for camping, but horse owners quickly started using them for exactly this sort of thing.