my non horsey friend was watching show jumping with me and asked why do the horses wear the ear nets?
I use them for trail riding for flies…
I suggested to keep cotton or ear plugs in???
Sorry for the ignorance, I’ve been out of the loop for a while!
They can be used to keep the ear plugs in,bugs out or for both purposes.
or fashion:D
[QUOTE=ridgeback;3459825]
or fashion:D[/QUOTE]
Or that. I forgot horses were after style points too 
[QUOTE=ridgeback;3459825]
or fashion:D[/QUOTE]
At that level I would be very surprised.
Ok, how about another dumb question? How are the insects in HK? As bad as here in the summer? I don’t use fly bonnets much unless I’m on a trail ride, and my horses seem fine. I noticed maybe more than half the SJ horses were wearing them. I’m sure everyone has their reasons.
oh good, I’m not the only person wondering about that?
it’s at night, basically in the city right? do they have our friends the mayflies?? or the green eyed monsters, or lately about dush the REAL horse flies have been showing up at my farm the ones that send your horse a buckin’…mine actually runs up to me to get those.
They wear them at indoor shows a lot, too. So in those cases it’s for earplugs or it really is for fashion. Plus they’re all color coordinated with the jackets or flag colors.
My (non-horsey) brother asked if the horses were required to wear hats, too. :lol:
My guy’s ears seem to feel tickled when his mane brushes up against them if his mane isn’t braided… So, I may use an ear net to keep him from shaking his head because of the ear tickles! :yes:
another dumb question
Here’s another dumb question:
Why do the show jumpers use earplugs so much? Is the sound that distracting? Dressage horses and eventers don’t and they seem to learn to ignore sound disctractions. What is different about the showjumpers? Truly, I have no idea. I can’t even say that I’ve seen a pair of horse earlplugs.
Thanks!
Beezie said they took Authentic’s bonnet off for the finals the other night because the bugs were bad. So, I guess the answer to HK’s bug question is “not too big a deal,” at least at night.
www.horsesmarts.net
guess I can’t post pics, so here is “horse ear plugs” actually have several, my big Shire is verry sensitive to deer, rabbits etc popin out from behind. I would think that show jumpers would have been there, done that.
I really don’t feel so dumb now.
It’s a bit of a rip off actually…correct me if I’m wrong here, people in the know, initially it was illegal to put ear plugs in for any horse sport (except hunters )…the jumpers got the OK from the ‘powers-that-be’ to use the ear covers for ‘bug issues’. However with the ‘ears’ on how can you tell if they also have ear plugs?..ear plugs ok’d for jumpers. BUT not for dressage or eventers…go figure. Does it make a big difference…no independant studies conducted…so who knows? Probably not really useful in dressage for the kur competition where (hopefully) the horse is redponding to the music as well as the rider is. Given that China isn’t all over environmental issues (at the moment) there is, in all likelyhood, some pretty effective bug control going on. I’m betting the ear cover thing is in fact a noise issue…so who really cares? apparently DRESSAGE and even eventing do… It’s a crazy old world isn’t it?
When watching the live streaming stuff, it sounded like they were very close to an airport. I’m not sure that’s what I was hearing, but maybe that would warrant a lot of earplug use.
Did anyone notice that the Canadians bonnets didn’t move,at all!!It was as if they had an underwire or something with a bit of weight or stiffness in them.
