Do you one of those 'groomas', the currycomb sized rubber thingy that has fairly stiff 1-2 inch cone shaped teeth.? It really gets down next to the skin. Especially this time of year when the winter coat is so thick doing a thorougjh grooming can be very difficult. There are two other things I use, one of which is I 'strap' him. that puts a shine on my horse like nothing else. Something else I found also is that when my horse is getting ridden regularly and sweats if I rinse him off every time he gets a real nice shine to his coat. I have always believed that the sweat carries all that junk that gets in the hair and brings it to the surface because he will have a different shine in the areas that had been rinsed off