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I couldn't ride my horse all summer because of the flies. Then a 30-year equestrian showed me something that finally got rid of them. I've owned horses for twenty years, and I'll be honest with you. Last summer, I about gave up on riding my mare at all. It wasn't her fault. She's a good girl. But come fly season, you couldn't pay me to get on her. The flies would just eat her alive out there. Big ol' horseflies, the kind that bite hard enough to draw blood. She'd stomp, she'd swish, she'd fling her head around trying to get away from them. And the second I'd climb up in that saddle, it'd get worse. She'd start crow-hopping and thrashing under me, and my stomach would just drop. Because here's the thing nobody likes to admit at my age. I'm not twenty-five anymore. When a thousand-pound animal starts spinning and kicking out under you, all you can think about is hitting the ground. I've got grandbabies. I can't be breaking a hip because a horsefly set my mare off. So I just... stopped. All summer. I'd go out, mess with her, love on her, and put her right back in the shade. And it broke my heart a little every time. That's my girl. Riding her is the whole reason I have her. And I was too scared to do it. And it wasn't for lack of trying, either. Lord, the money I've spent. I tried every fly spray at the feed store. The yellow one, the blue one, the fancy one the gal behind the counter swore up and down was the best. I bought her a fly mask, a fly sheet, the fly boots, the whole getup. I even mixed up my own concoctions off the internet, vinegar and this and that. I'd spray her down good before I brought her out, and by the time I had her saddled, them flies were right back on her like I hadn't done a thing. After enough summers of that, you just figure it's how it is. Some horses are sensitive, that's what everybody told me. I figured my mare was one of 'em, and that not riding all summer was just part of the deal. Then I went to a little country show over one weekend, mostly just to walk around and visit. And that's where I met him. He was an older fella, had to be seventy, and you could tell just by watching him he'd been around horses his whole life. Turned out he'd been at it thirty years. His gelding was tied up by his trailer, and I noticed that horse right off, because in the middle of fly season, he looked good. Slick, quiet, standing there half asleep. Not stomping. Not a bite on him. I said something about how bad the flies were tearing my mare up, and how I hadn't been able to ride her all summer on account of it. He nodded like he'd heard it a hundred times. Then he said, "Mine used to be the same way. Couldn't hardly ride him in the summer neither. He'd thrash so bad I quit trying." He nodded at his gelding. "Now look at him." I looked. That horse didn't have a mark on him. So I asked him flat out, what in the world are you doing different? And he told me something I'd never heard in twenty years of owning horses. He said his vet was the one who put him onto it. He'd had the vet out for something else, and got to complaining about the flies, and his vet told him she'd been reading up on certain plant oils, and that there was real research showing they help keep biting bugs off. She told him it wasn't a medicine and it wasn't a replacement for good fly control, but that as a side help, it was worth looking into. So he did. And what he found is the part that stuck with me. He said flies don't find your horse by luck. They find her by smell. Your horse gives off a scent, and it drifts on the wind, and the fly follows that smell right to her. That's how one fly finds one horse out in a wide-open field. It's tracking her. Then he said the thing that stopped me cold. Every spray I'd ever bought was made to kill or run off the fly after it already landed. Not one of 'em did a lick about the smell that was drawing the flies in to begin with. I'd been fighting the fly the whole time. Nobody ever told me to hide the horse. Twenty years, and I'd never once thought about it that way. He told me the plant oils don't try to kill the fly at all. They mix up your horse's scent so the fly can't read it no more. The horse is standing right there, but the fly can't find her. It flies in, gets all turned around, and drifts right back off. Now, I'll be straight with you. My first thought was, plant oils, sure. Sounds like something that smells nice and does nothing. I'd basically tried that with my homemade mess and it was a waste of time and money. But he must've seen it on my face, because he grinned and said, "Don't take my word for it. Go on home and look it up yourself." So I did. And it turned out he was right. There's a good bit of real research on these oils and how they keep biting bugs away. But I learned one more thing that finally explained why my homemade stuff never worked. It ain't just about using "plant oils." Any old bottle of citronella won't cut it. It's about the right combination of the specific oils, all together, in the right amounts. One oil by itself does a little. The right blend of 'em, together, is what actually hides your horse. I'd just been throwing one thing in a bottle and hoping. No wonder. So I went looking for something that used the right combination. And I kept coming back to the same name. Renoura. It had the very oils I'd just spent all night reading about. Citronella, litsea cubeba, clove, thyme, and more, all together in the one spray. Not one thing doing a little. All of 'em, doing it right. For the first time in a long while, I wasn't buying hope. I was buying something I'd looked into with my own two eyes. I ordered a bottle that very night. It came a few days later, and I sprayed my mare down good before I turned her out that Friday. I still half expected to be let down, same as always. By the middle of the next week, no new welts on her belly. By the end of the second week, the old rubbed-raw spots were finally healing up instead of getting tore open every afternoon. By week four, the hair was coming back in where she'd scratched herself bare. And then came the day I'd been waiting on. One evening, cool and calm, I saddled her up. My hands were shaking a little, I won't lie. I climbed up expecting her to start in stomping and thrashing any second. She didn't. She just stood there. Ears soft. Tail quiet. Waiting on me like a good girl. So I asked her to walk on. And we walked. Then we trotted out across the pasture, the two of us, in the middle of fly season, and she never once thrashed or flung her head. She wasn't fighting them bugs because they weren't on her. For the first time in longer than I can remember, I wasn't scared. I was just riding my horse. I about cried right there in the saddle. That's the whole reason I have her. To ride her. To get out there in the evening air and go. And I'd lost that for years, thinking it was just how things had to be. She's out there right now, as I write this. Deep in fly season, standing easy, not a fly on her. And come this evening, I'm gonna go get her, and we're gonna ride. If you've had to watch from the fence 'cause you're scared to get on your own horse, I'm not gonna tell you what to do. I'm just gonna tell you what that old horseman told me. Don't take my word for it. Go look up how flies really find your horse. Look up the oils. I'll leave a link down below, if you want to see what I found.