IIRC I once found a very smooshed fly under a flymask. I think it far more likely that a horse will rub his face on things and squish the intruding insect than freak out and run (with the exception of those horses without any sense of self preservation who would react like that to other common stimulus). A fellow boarder’s horse got a stinging insect stuck under the mask, got stung, squished the insect. The human decided flymasks were dangerous, but was using one again within a year because the horse was unhappy without it.
I’ve not had night issues with flymasks. I imagine horses with poorer night vision could find the mask sufficiently obstructive to cause concern.
I have had a fairly serious eye injury from a fly mask, BUT my horse has a compromised eyelid from an old (not mask related) injury. A normal horse would not be at risk the same way mine is.
The long nose masks were a great thing for my second horse. His summer coat was so fine that his blaze burned right up to the bottom of his mask. The long nose shielded that pink skin nicely.
The current one with white over both nostrils will take a long nosed flymask off within minutes of me leaving him in the field. :rolleyes: He did decide this year that ears in blackfly season are a Good Thing, though he won’t wear them the rest of the summer… except when I put one on for riding and he has no chance to rub it off.
