Horse terrified of flies

[Tufty]

My 5 year old , who I have only owned since October is terrified of flies. I discovered this yesterday when I turned him out he broke the electric fence trying to get away from flies and was in a real state by the time I got to him.

What shall I do as the flies have not even got bad yet.

 

[RachaelV]

A lot of horses have this reaction to the bot fly. It may be that it was a bot fly chasing your horse. Most of the horsed in our yard go ballistic when being chased by these!

 

[nicnag]

My mare gets into a real state in summer, you'll see her galloping about for no apparent reason, hacks were getting dangerous with the head tossing and throwing herself about. I tried all kinds of repellants and only riding at night, this helped a bit but not so much with the field issues. Other than keeping her in I tried an all over fly sheet with a mask in the field which has almost completely solved the problem, still has occasional issues! The ridden problem has been pretty much resolved with a fly mask (one of the ones you can attach to the bridle, can't remember who makes them!) and lots of really good fly repellant. I'm not sure how much of that you can use at the moment but it's all I can think of. Good luck