My horse has had bald spots under his cheekbones for a couple of weeks now. At first I thought he was rubbing his face so I put a fly mask on him, but I haven't seen any improvement.

After doing some research on hair loss in horses tonight, I am pretty sure he has ringworm. =/

I have a vet appointment about 3 weeks from now, but in the mean time I would like to do what I can to speed up the healing process.

According to the internet, I should bath him in an anti-fungal shampoo and apply anti-fungal cream to the affected areas once thoroughly dry.

They also suggested I deep clean tack, brushes, blankets, etc. What is the best way to go about this? Does hot water and detergent work? What about for leather tack? Will saddle soap work?

I am planning on reaching out to my trainer tomorrow and seeing what she says about all this. She knows he has bald spots, but we couldn't figure out what they were. I'm a little terrified that he has infected all the other horses.

I appreciate any tips on how to handle this!

I would scrub it with iodine and spray banixx

on it. I have used this combination multiple times and it has worked very well on fungus(my arab is very prone to skin issues). I would try to do this once a day, make sure if their are any scabs or dried puss you get it off.

i agree with iodine, it worked bery well for my horse. Also if you can, wash your brushes in soapy water. A friends horse had ringworm and she gave it to mine by letting me borrow her brush that she hadnt washed <3

i agree with everyone else, and also i think the anti-fungal shampoo is a great idea to prevent it from spreading.

also make sure that when you brush the areas with the ringworm, dont use that same brush on the rest of his body, and definitely no sharing brushes.

a bucket of water with some dish soap should work pretty well. if you have synthetic brushes, you can add a tiny bit of bleach if you want, but dont do that with natural brushes cause itll fuck them up.

for leather just clean it with saddle soap really thoroughly since most cleaners will mess up the leather. im not sure what type of girth you have, but if its a cotton one then wash it and make sure to keep it dry when its on him and clean it whenever you can.

i hope you two can be done with that annoying fungus soon, its definitely not very fun!

I had a mare I was starting under saddle come up with a fungal infection. I thoroughly cleaned all of my tack - saddle pads, cinches, ect were scrubbed gently with detergent free / mild soaps (like woolite) and warm water. Grooming gear was soaked in a vinegar/water mixture. All leather gear was gone over a couple times with saddle soap and oiled.

The horse was bathed with anti fungal shampoo and was spot treated with an anti fungal mixture.

Just a tip, any tack or equipment used on that horse should be kept away from other horses/tack/ect. Even feed buckets.

Make sure you wear gloves. Ringworm can infect humans as well. I had it on my hand.

I ride a horse that had it, you can still see the spots on her side. Like Cadence said, wear gloves! I got it on my arm as well and I still have scars. We used anti-fungal shampoo 3-5x a week and ketaconazale cream (from the vet) every day for almost a month. I hope your horse gets better soon!