Dressage New rules from 1st January

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humblepie

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The new rules include that horses must not have their sensory hairs around the mouth, nose, eyes and ears with reference to the FEI rules. Having looked at the FEI, I couldn't find the rule (as possibly not in til July under FEI rules?) but it refers to the outer hairs of the ear not the inner ears. Obviously we have no idea when competitions may start again but if thinking of doing a full clip, leave those ears alone. Fortunately my horse's clip stopped at the ears to keep his little ears and face warm over winter.
 
I find the outer ear thing completely baffling.

Eurodressage reported

The FEI veterinary committee added that, "hairs in the horse’s ears are not considered to be sensory hairs
Click to expand...

I could understand not allowing trimming inside the ears but they seem unconcerned.
But outside... when my cob is in her winter woolies its really hard to avoid her getting scabby skin around her ears because they are so fluffy and she sweats, takes a while to dry etc so I clip her whole head To make it easy to keep on top of. I genuinely don't get the thing about outer ear hair. I'm very very pro-whiskers otherwise.
 
I don’t read it as not being able to clip the outside of the ear. You can still do that imho and take the Batman bits off too. Just not trim the inside. Works for me I like whiskers and I gave up trimming ears a long time ago!
 
I expected it to say not to clip the inside but it def seems to say outside on various articles ?
 
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Yes I found the info about the inside ear hair not being sensatory and couldn’t find the rule re trimming in the FEI rule book but found an article saying the FEI rule was outer ear hair. It makes sense that it’s what the horse senses his extremities with.
 
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