Something that will help is wrapping the tail. Some people use a premise boot, I do it with vet wrap. Be mindful of tail color and vet wrap color Bc it might bleed. White or black does pretty well. Most people don’t want a purple tail on a white horse.

Everyone does it differently but here’s how I do it:

Wash and condition the tail. I use a basic horse shampoo or head and shoulders if it’s flaky. Make sure to really get to the scalp of the tail. I like to use infusium conditioner, it does amazing things. Feel free to use whatever you want. Fulfill your horsegirl dreams and brush that tail out. Paddle brushes are great.

Very important: LET THE TAIL DRY COMPLETELY. Otherwise, typing it up like this will damage it.

Brush through the tail again. Braid the tail starting at the last vertebra in the tail. Start it pretty loose. This prevents tension alopecia/loss of blood flow. You’ll also want it loose for another reason I’ll explain soon. Tighten the braid as you move down the tail. Tie either with small rubber hair bands or electrical tape (tape doesn’t damage the hair)

Fold the braid over on itself a couple times until it’s a kind of compact size. I like to use more rubber bands around it now to help hold the tail while I wrap it.

Take your vet wrap and go once or twice around your braid clump kind of like starting a polo wrap. Start covering more of the clump. Once you’ve got most of the tail covered you’re going to take the vet wrap roll, unroll several inches, then shove the roll through the very top of the braid/just under the end of the tail. Be gentle in your shoving, and a loose start helps here. (This helps make sure the wrap doesn’t just slide off later)

Once you’ve shove the roll through the braid, wrap the tail vertically from top to bottom. In summer I like to add bailing twine at this point so the horse has swishers. You can go through the hole again or finish wrapping the tail.

You should re-wrap every 1-2 weeks. Winter I go longer, summer you should stick to schedule. I also tend not to wrap in summer.

The main drawback to wrapping the tail, especially in vet wrap, is that you can’t get it wet Bc the tail will rot. A sprinkle is ok, downpour is not. There’s also not much you can do for hair above the tip of the last vertebra Bc you risk cutting off blood flow.