Flies and hacking.... arghh!!

[Neptune]

Is anybody elses horse affected by flies whilst out hacking?

My horse does not tolerate them. He was doing a lot of head shaking previously so figured I would just buy him a face mask with the ears to help him cope with the flies. But today out hacking he was twitching and jamming to a halt to scratch all different parts of his body, stamping his back legs to his belly and eventually trying to run away from them while shaking his head... Not fun for either of us!

I have tried dowsing him in fly spray, but that hasn't worked. Happy to buy him a face mask if I knew that was going to stop it but not sure it will after todays antics the flies seem to be effecting his whole body!

Others must have had this problem also, what have you done to help your horse cope? I really don't want to stop hacking. Have thought about riding early/later to avoid the 'peak' time of the flies but I am bit reluctant to be hacking whilst on my own on the yard as he is young so still a little unpredictable.

Or is there some magic fly spray out there that really works? Have thought about feeding Garlic, does that actually work? But that isn't going to be an instant fix, surely that takes a little while to get into their system.

Just want a nice chilled hack, don't need to be encouraging the youngster to be running and stress walking everywhere because of the poxy flies!

Any ideas? Thanks

 

[SuperH]

At fly time of year I ride first thing in the morning, it is the only thing I have found that really helps with mine. Does noone else you hack with want to go out earlier and also avoid the flies?

I do fly pour my two, but that only works with biting flies and it only kills them when they bite so the ponies still get bitten.

 

[Tayto]

I feed mine garlic and it seems to be keeping her fly free so far (touches wood). I also give her a garlic lick before we have so she has garlic smeared all over her face when we got out

 

[Dexydoodle]

I wear a hi vis mesh sheet that covers her quarters. Its lightweight so she doesn't overheat and that way I can focus on swatting the flies on the front end!