Help me out here. I am an old equitation/hunter/jumper rider from the AHSA era when bridles were sown, ladies wore bowlers and had poofy breeches. (then switched to dressage) What are nose nets for? I can understand the ear bonnets but covering the nose with a piece of netting? What are you trying to accomplish? Just curious so please don’t trample me.
Someone else will have to post the details, but as far as I am aware, the nose nets help with head shaking.
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It relieves the symptoms of headshaking in some cases.
Then the questions become how does this work and why would you have the head shaking in the first place? I have read that Valegro had a problem with head shaking but that it seemed to work out as he matured and use of the double bridle.
Not to be rude, but if it were easy to figure out, we would have answers already and no one would need nose nets. The theory is that the trigeminal nerve misfires in some horses, causing them to feel pain or itching. There are a number of suspected causes including allergies, photosensitivy, and immune system malfunctioning. Some horses get relief from having their noses covered, some are successfully treated medically, some can be treated through management, for some it is career-ending. It is very frustrating and miserable to deal with and not really in the same category as the ear bonnets (which are often a fashion choice or used to muffle sound.)
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I rode 2 horses with pretty bad head shaking. Both wore nose nets. My gelding’s head shaking was caused by his super sensitive nose and allergies, so the net protected him from kicked up dust or dirt so he wasn’t distracted. He was nearly impossible to ride in the rain, net or no net. It was definitely worse in the spring and fall and nearly non-existent in the winter, though he HAD to be ridden in one when it was raining. Oddly enough, as our partnership grew and we got better at flatwork and developed a better work ethic/focus, I had to use the net less and less.
Here is a summary of New Bolton lecture on headshaking:
My sister had a horse that developed this. He was fine in the winter, but as soon as the new grass started sprouting in the spring, he was pretty much unrideable. It’s an extremely frustrating thing because the horse is clearly miserable and it’s tough to watch.
My niece worked for a vet at the time and they tried every treatment that the vet could come up with and some of the wackier homeopathic/old wives’ tale remedy. The horse got some relief from a nose net and one of the medications the vet tried, but no significant improvement.
We had some luck using a nose net on my horse who has allergy issues. We put it on when working outside Both in bad allergy and bug season.
It’s not a fashion thing.
Some horses are bothered by flies. Some horses have seasonal allergies. Some horses have a neurologic condition.
Sometimes these things are helped by the use of a nose net.
Trust me, no one WANTS their horse to need one. Horses with really bothersome sensitivities/allergies/neurological conditions are HARD to manage.
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The barn I have worked for on and off has a fabulous school horse that has to wear one, particularly in the summer, because of photosensitivity. It makes the difference in him being a useful horse or a retired horse; and he is one of those precious, will teach a kid to ride, pack around a course in a perfect rhythm kind of schoolies, so anything within reason to keep him happy is worth doing.
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I rode a horse at the trainers who they got a nose net for. He was a head shaker (I guess. Not really shaking, but sudden dipping behind the bridle? Like he got pinged in the nose by a dirt clod? Is that considered “head shaking”?) It was miserable for him and for his riders. He got the nose net and stopped pinging. Dunno why, but it worked for him.
My TB snorked up bugs while cantering twice in the space of two weeks. He started tossing his head and just wouldn’t stop. A nose net and/or a standing martingale (nose net was better) stopped the behaviour. He stills wears it when the bugs are bad, but for the most part he is okay now.
We had another horse in the barn that was busy with his head for no real reason. He started wearing a nose net based on my success with it and he also stopped the head flipping.
head shaking, plain and simple. It minimized it, he still did it sometimes but overall it helped tremendously.
My gelding would frequently stop dead and rub his nose on his leg during the summer; distracting, bothersome and sometimes dangerous as he was pretty obsessed with doing it when in motion - bitless or bitted, free lunging or riding, fly spray or swat creme or sunblock - nothing helped except the single nose net which stopped the behavior completely. Not sure if it was flies, sizzling heat on his white blaze, allergies or a combo.
I would consider that to be head shaking. My mare who was a photic headshaker did the exact same movement. I wish the nose net worked for her but it actually seemed to aggrevate the condition in her case.
The nose net also made my horse worse (my god he HATED it) but I was lucky because through allergy shots and an elimination diet, I was able to remove the allergic reaction that triggered the “headshaking.”
My horse is a head shaker. We tried everything and nothing helped, so as a last ditch effort we tried a nosenet and it worked.
When he does it, he flips his nose up and to the left. When it was really bad, he would strike out as well. It would scare me because we’d be coming down to a jump and he would do it and jerk the reins out of my hand which would throw off our approach. His would get worse seasonally and when he got stressed or worked up-he hated my old farrier so he would start head shaking at the noise of the anvil.
The thought behind the nosenet is that irratafion the trigeminal triggers it-the have the feeling like right before you sneeze all of the time. The nosenet is a constant stimulus of the nerves in the face, so eventually the horses ignores it (just like you wearing clothing essentially)
I always felt like it mellowed my boy out a bit. He was more focused on the nose net than being uptight. When he had some new people starting to ride him, I put the net back on so he could be a little more centered for them. 
