Racehorse Trainer, 49: The Horse Flies Bite Me While I'm Holding A Horse, And You Never Let Go Of A Horse
Bitten while your hands are full? Read this before you buy another tube.
I'm Grainne Yeadon. I've trained racehorses in Kentucky for fifteen years.
I was born in County Kildare and came over at 22 to gallop.
Fourteen horses live in my barn near Midway, and so do the flies.
By every August, my forearms used to look like a dartboard.
This is how I stopped letting one horse fly wreck my whole day.
- ✓Bitten while your hands are full
- ✓Welts that throb till lunch
- ✓Itching three days later
- ✓Scratched open by the weekend
If you work outside with your hands busy, you know every one.
From the farrier's bench, to the wash rack, to the saddling paddock.
The flies find you exactly when you can't do a thing about it.
A Thousand Pounds Of Colt In One Hand, A Horse Fly On The Other Arm
Holding a colt for the farrier, I felt the fly land and settle in.
Legging Tadeo up, a deer fly got my neck right under the ear.
On race day one bit my hand while I pulled the girth tight.
And you never let go of a horse. Not for a fly. Not ever.
Seven summers ago, a jumpy filly and one fly broke my wrist.
So I stand there and let it feed. Every trainer I know does.
Then last July, my neighbor Treva opened a book on a fence post.
Surprising Truth: A Horse Fly Doesn't Bite You. It Cuts You.
- A small, calm pink spot
- The heat goes out of it
- Hands steady on the next girth
- Forgotten by the next set
- A hard, hot, red welt
- Throbbing until lunch
- Itching for three days
- Scratched open by Saturday
A mosquito is a needle. It slips in, sips, and leaves.
A horse fly is a pair of scissors.
Its mouth carries tiny blades that slice the skin wide open.
Then it laps up whatever comes out, like a barn cat at a saucer.
While it feeds, its spit gets down into the cut.
Your body reads that spit as an intruder and rings every bell it has.
The bell is called histamine, and it floods the spot in seconds.
That's the hard, hot, red welt that rises before you've finished the job.
It throbs for an hour. Then it itches for three days.
And on day two, half asleep, you scratch it open.
Look at the left side of the picture above.
That bite got calmed in the first few minutes, and it stayed small.
Now look at the right side. Same fly, same forearm, same morning.
That one was left alone till lunch, and it swelled like a hoof abscess.
The first minutes decide the day. I learned that the itchy way.
Like a paper cut with a hot match held to itIf you've never had one, that's exactly how it feels.
A paper cut, and somebody holding a lit match against it.
Except the match stays lit for three days, and it itches too.
So Why Does Nothing In The Truck Ever Help?
You can't swat a fly with a lead shank in your hand.
Sprays wash off the minute you hose a horse, and I hose fourteen.
The tube of itch cream lives in the truck, never in my pocket.
Wipes dry out in the glovebox heat by the end of June.
And I'm not stopping a farrier mid-nail to hunt for a tube.
By the time I reach it, the welt has had an hour's head start.
Barn work needs something you can put on fast, right at the sink.
Leave It Alone, And The Whole Summer Goes Downhill
In June it's a few bites, and you laugh them off at the rail.
By July you wake up with welts sitting on top of welts.
Your forearms look like a road map of Woodford County.
In August you scratch in your sleep and wake up with them open.
Open skin in a barn is no small thing. Dirt, sweat, hay dust, flies.
Now they sting in the shower and catch on every sleeve.
You quit rolling your sleeves up, even when it's ninety degrees.
You flinch at every buzz, and the horses feel you flinch.
A nervous handler makes a nervous horse. Every trainer knows that one.
I told myself it was just part of the job.
Fifteen years I said it. Carlisle said it for forty.
He bathed fourteen horses a day with his arms covered in scabs.
He'd rub them on his jeans and say, "Flies, sure."
It was never part of the job. It was a welt nobody calmed early.
So What's The Fix? It Was Growing Behind My Farmhouse All Along
Treva Dunnaway is 82. She bred horses next door for fifty years.
She saw my arms over the fence and made her lame-horse face.
The next afternoon she propped a fat paperback on a fence post.
It was open to page 81. I still call it the fence-post page.
Plantain, she said. The flat, broad weed every lawn in Kentucky grows.
And mint, the cool green stuff that takes the heat out of anything.
Crushed together with a little water, they make a wet green paste.
I'd been mowing that plantain for eleven years and cursing it.
But here's the problem. Nobody ever tells you the amounts.
How much plantain? How long do you leave it? What goes on top?
Guess wrong and you've got green slime sliding down your arm mid-bath.
She'd used page 81 for years, back when she was the one holding horses.
Thankfully, Treva's book didn't leave a single thing to guesswork.
Fifteen Minutes At The Tack Room Sink, And Not One Amount To Guess
1234- The name and what it's for: bug bites and stings
- What you need: a handful of plantain, a handful of mint, 1 tsp water
- The steps: crush, cover 15 minutes, rinse, throw the paste away
- The dose at the foot of the page: "Safe for most."
It's not the weed that does the job. It's the method.
A leaf slapped on a bite falls off before you've crossed the aisle.
Folk at the feed store say "rub some on" and leave you there.
Page 81 gives you every part, in order, on one page.
A handful of fresh plantain leaves. A handful of fresh mint leaves.
One teaspoon of water, approx. 5 ml.
Crush the plantain and mint with the water into a paste.
Apply it to the sting and cover it for 15 minutes.
Rinse it off, and throw the paste away after use.
Apply as needed for stings. The page says: "Safe for most."
My first batch went in a small stainless bowl, with a wooden spoon.
The bite on my forearm burned like a hot wire when I started.
A square of gauze over it, taped, and the kitchen timer on the shelf.
When it rang, the burn had quit. I held the next three horses steady.
My plantain comes from my own kitchen garden, never the sprayed pastures.
The farm sprays every fence line for broadleaf weeds, and plantain's a broadleaf.
So I pick it only from a garden that's never seen a sprayer.
The mint grows wild by the tack room hose, where the horses drink.
Nothing gets sprayed there. I wash both twice under the tap.
The horses get their own fly masks and sheets. The poultice is ours.
Now every bite on this farm ends up at the tack room sink.
Meet SCAN. HEAL. REPEAT., The Paperback That Lived On My Shelf
Treva's book is called SCAN. HEAL. REPEAT., and Jasper Owens wrote it.
Think of a feed chart, only it's written for people instead of horses.
There are 106 remedies inside, and each one gets its own page.
They sit in 19 sections, sorted by which part of you is complaining.
The ingredients are things a farm kitchen already has, or grows by the door.
It's printed in the USA, a sturdy paperback that survives a tack room.
I use six of its pages all summer long. Here they are:
- ❧Coconut-Calendula Balm (p. 76): 1 tsp 1 to 2 times daily
- ❧Ginger-Arnica Balm (p. 101): 1 tsp 1 to 2 times daily
- ❧Lavender-Chamomile Herbal Balm (p. 28): 1 tsp, wrists or temples
- ❧Lavender-Tart Cherry Sleep Syrup (p. 31): 1 tbsp before bed
Page 79 is for my neck after a long race day in the sun.
You mix 2 tbsp fresh aloe gel with 2 tbsp plain yogurt.
Apply it to sunburned skin for 15 minutes, then rinse it off.
It keeps 1 day in the fridge, which suits a barn fridge fine.
Dose: 1 tbsp 2 to 3 times daily during sunburn. "Safe for most."
Page 76 is for hands cracked from hosing horses down all summer.
It's 1 tsp, 1 to 2 times daily. The page says: "Avoid eyes."
Page 101 is for my shoulders after mucking out fourteen stalls.
Also 1 tsp, 1 to 2 times daily. Its line is "Avoid open skin."
Page 28 is for race-day nerves while I wait in the saddling paddock.
That's 1 tsp on the wrists or temples, 1 to 2 times daily.
The caution on that page reads: "Avoid eyes or broken skin."
Page 31 is for my 4:30 a.m. alarm. 1 tbsp before bed.
Its caution: "Avoid using with blood thinners." Every page carries its own.
It works nothing like the sprays, tubes and wipes rolling round my truck.
Those sit in a glovebox. This sits at the sink, ready in a minute.
Don't Believe A Horse Trainer? Ask The Wash Rack Crowd
More than 18,000 readers keep this book on a shelf somewhere.
Grooms, farriers and riders write in about page 81 every summer.
Here are three of them, from people who hold horses for a living.
Twenty-two years shoeing horses, and horse flies love a man bent double with a hoof in his lap. A groom handed me her copy at a barn in Shelbyville. I made the plantain and mint paste in a coffee can lid with a teaspoon of water, gauze on top, fifteen minutes in the truck cab. The bite on my wrist went from burning to plain pink. I bought two, one for the truck and one for home.
I'm a groom at a training center outside Lexington and I bathe eight horses before nine. My arms used to look like I'd lost a fight with a hedge. My trainer keeps the book in the tack room. I pick plantain from the yard at my apartment, which nobody sprays, and mint from a pot. Fifteen minutes and the throb is gone. I also use the calendula balm on page 76 on my cracked hands.
Barrel racing in July means deer flies on your neck the second you're in the alley. You can't let go of the reins to swat. After my runs I make the page 81 paste at the trailer sink and tape gauze over it. By the time my mare is cooled out, the bite's gone quiet. My mom has the second copy and swears by the sleep syrup on page 31.
Picture A Whole Fly Season Where The Bites Don't Win
Picture this… a horse fly lands while you're holding a colt for the farrier.
- ✕No more welts throbbing until lunch
- ✕No more scratching in your sleep
- ✕No more flinching while you hold a horse
And the best part? It takes 15 minutes at the sink.
Open to page 81, and crush your two handfuls with the teaspoon of water.
Cover it, set the timer, and go write up the morning's works.
Rinse, throw the paste out, and get straight back to the horse.
Picture the farrier finishing, and you not even remembering the fly.
Picture race day, the girth pulled tight, your hand steady as a gatepost.
Your hands stay steady, and the horse never knows a thing happened.
So you'll ask what I asked Treva. Where, and how much?
Where Do You Get Your Own Copy, And What Does It Cost?
Treva's copy sat on my tack room shelf for a whole year.
Then on the first of June, she told me she was moving.
Her daughter was taking her to a little house three states away.
She leaned on her cane and said, "I'll need my book back, love."
She held her own copy in her lap the day she left.
I'd meant to order my own since the very first bite it calmed.
But in a barn, anything that isn't limping waits till next week.
You order it from the official page, and that's the only place I'd go.
It's printed in the USA and ships with tracking, in 2 to 7 days.
Tracking mattered. I needed my box before Treva's moving truck came.
Mine came four days after I ordered. Two copies, wrapped up tight.
I checked my page 81 against hers, side by side, out of habit.
Same page, same handfuls, same teaspoon, same fifteen minutes.
Since then, half the riders on this farm have asked where I got it.
I send every one of them to that same official page.
Fly Season Doesn't Wait While You Think It Over
Here's the sum I wish I'd done a year sooner.
Think about what one welt costs you on a busy morning.
Ten minutes of scratching. A horse that feels you twitch. A worse night.
Now multiply it. I take about six bites on an ordinary July day.
That's forty-two a week, and every one of them a fresh welt.
A month of waiting is close to two hundred welts.
Two hundred chances to scratch one open in the middle of the night.
I waited eleven months to order my own copy. Eleven months.
With Treva's copy on the shelf, I just never sat down and did it.
Don't be me. Flies never take a day off. Neither do your hands.
And Carlisle waited forty years for his, which is worse again.
Why I Only Trust The Official Page With My Order
Here's how I read the offer like a condition book.
A condition book tells you which races a horse is eligible for.
You read every line, then the small print twice, or you get caught.
So after evening feed, I sat in the tack room and read it.
First condition: the free gifts come only on the official page.
Two free eBooks with two or more copies, and free shipping too.
Second condition: 60 days to try it. Full refund, and you keep the book.
I read that one twice. Keep the book, and still get the refund?
Third condition: printed in the USA, and tracked all the way down your lane.
No fourth condition. No catch hiding in the small print.
Fifteen years of entering horses taught me to read before I sign.
So I only order where the conditions are written down plain.
I train horses for a living. I only buy what earns its stall.
$37 For The Whole Book. Less Than One Set Of Front Shoes.
The list price is $44.99. On the official page, it's $37.
That's about 35 cents a remedy, for 106 of them.
My farrier charges more than that for one set of front shoes.
A tube of itch cream runs out by the middle of July.
A can of bug spray rinses off the first time I hose a horse.
This book sits on the shelf and never runs out of anything.
The plantain grows back. The mint tries to take over its pot.
You buy the book once, and the ingredients grow for free.
Now put that beside what a summer of bites really costs a barn.
Tubes, sprays, wipes, plus every hour spent scratching instead of working.
I added it up once on a feed bill. I didn't like it.
- ✓106 remedies, one per page, in 19 sections
- ✓Exact amounts, numbered steps and the dose on every page
- ✓Everyday ingredients from your kitchen or your garden
It covers far more than bites. Sun, hands, shoulders, sleep, all of it.
One book on one shelf, and it earns its keep every single week.
Now, $37 isn't nothing when hay has gone up again this year.
Grooms and hot walkers don't get paid like owners, believe me.
So here's the part that makes it cheaper, and better besides.
Why I Bought Two: One For Me, One For Carlisle
FREE
FREEWhy I bought two. One for my shelf, and one for Carlisle.
Carlisle is 61, and he's managed my barn for twelve years.
He wouldn't order a book for himself if he lived to a hundred.
But he'd watched me use page 81 every day for a year.
Then one July lunch he held out both forearms. Eleven bites.
He sat on an upturned bucket, both arms out under gauze.
When the timer rang, he looked a long while and said, "Huh."
From Carlisle, that's a speech.
Two copies cost $33.30 each, and the shipping is free.
You also get two free eBooks: "Wild Foods Foraging" and "Folk Country Remedies."
They're $27.99 each on their own. I'm saving mine for winter reading.
Three or more copies drop to $31.45 each.
One copy on its own is $37, plus $9.99 shipping.
Do the sum. Two copies come to $66.60, shipped free.
One copy alone comes to $46.99 once you pay the shipping.
So the second book, plus both eBooks, costs you $19.61 more.
Carlisle keeps his on the seat of his truck, still smelling of mint.
Dessie, his wife, sent me a cutting of her own mint to say thanks.
Most barn people get two: one for the tack room, one for a partner.
See Today's Price And Free GiftsSixty Days To Try It, And The Book Stays In Your Barn
Try it for 60 days. If it's not for you, get a full refund, and keep the book.
Sixty days is two full months of morning sets.
That's long enough to see a whole stretch of fly season.
Make the poultice. Try the aloe mask after a race day in the sun.
Rub the calendula balm into hands that have been wet since five.
If it's not for you, ask for a full refund.
You don't even box the book back up. You keep the book.
Day one or day fifty-nine, the deal stays exactly the same.
Nobody in racing hands you terms like that.
I've bought horses with fewer promises than this paperback carries.
I already knew page 81 worked before I paid a cent.
So the guarantee wasn't why I ordered. But I like it written down.
A seller who writes a promise down usually means to keep it.
And you've got a whole fly season to find out for yourself.
Treva's copy was worn soft at page 81 from years of horse flies.
That's how long a good book lasts in a barn.
There's nothing to lose but the welts.
Here's How To Get The Book Onto Your Own Tack Room Shelf
- 1Tap the button below
- 2Choose how many copies on the official page
- 3It ships tracked in 2 to 7 days. The day it lands, pick an unsprayed handful of plantain and turn to page 81
Most people I know order more than one. Here's why.
One: the barn copy gets green thumbprints. The house copy stays clean.
Two: somebody you work beside is scratching their arms right this minute.
Three: two copies bring free shipping and both eBooks. Three get cheaper still.
Tadeo, my exercise rider, is 27 and gets bitten on the wrists every set.
He can't drop the reins, same as I can't drop a lead shank.
Four deer fly bites, fifteen minutes under gauze, and he just stared at me.
He said something in Spanish. Carlisle laughed for the first time that summer.
Horse people ask me three things at the rail.
"Where do you find plantain?" Lawns and lane edges nobody has ever sprayed.
Mine comes from my kitchen garden. Never a pasture, never a fence line.
"Will it stay on while I work?" Gauze and a strip of tape.
Fifteen minutes, and I write up the works while it sits.
"What else is in it for barn people?" Plenty, as it happens.
Sun on your neck, cracked hands, sore shoulders, and sleep before a 4:30 alarm.
Treva's copy went three states away. Mine stays right here, by the sink.
See Today's Price And Free GiftsRemember: The Only Thing You Risk Is Another Summer Of Scratching
The only real risk is waiting.
Say you close this page and go back to the truck tubes.
Next June, the first horse fly lands while you're holding a colt.
You stand still, because you never let go of a horse.
By August your arms are a patchwork of scabs and welts again.
You sleep in long sleeves so you won't scratch in the night.
I'm not trying to frighten you. That was my summer for fifteen years.
Option one is the truck dashboard. Half-used tubes, sticky sprays, dried-up wipes.
I had that for fifteen years, and none of it was ever in reach.
Option two is a shelf by the sink. Plantain, mint, gauze, a timer.
And one book, open to the fence-post page.
My training book, one summer. A few margin notes, copied out:
June 3. Held Mossgrove for the farrier. Two bites, right forearm. Fifteen minutes.
June 17. Deer fly in the starting gate, right under my ear.
Hand mirror propped on the shelf. Fifteen minutes while I wrote up works.
July 11. Tinsmith won by three and a half. Fly on my girth hand.
Poultice on a bucket outside his stall. Burn gone before his bath.
July 21. Storm day. Twenty-one bites between Carlisle and me. Two bowls, two timers.
August 31. Fourteen horses sound. My arms look like any working woman's arms.
Now think of who else holds still while the flies bite.
The groom on the wash rack. The kid learning to hot walk.
Your partner fixing fence in July. Your dad casting a line off the dock.
The friend who gardens in gloves and can't get at a bite.
Hand them a copy, and they'll quit scratching too.
Carlisle's wife says he comes home without scratching, first time in forty years.
She says he shows the book around like a picture of a grandchild.
- ✓You can hold a horse steady while a fly bites
- ✓You can calm a bite in 15 minutes at the sink
- ✓You can get through fly season with whole, quiet skin
Treva rang last month from her daughter's place, three states away.
She's found plantain in the back lawn, and her mint's in a pot.
"So you finally ordered it," she said. I told her two.
She laughed. "First thing you ever bought for yourself that you shared."
Mossgrove still bites the pony horse. Some things no book sorts out.
But my arms are a different story now.
Carlisle did it. Tadeo did it. You can too.
See Today's Price And Free GiftsGIFTSwith 2+
Comments
Two summers on page 81 here, Della. Gauze, fifteen minutes, back to tacking up.
Farrier here. I'm bent over a hoof all day and they know it. Ordered two.
How long does shipping take to Virginia?
Mine came in 5 days to Lynchburg, with tracking the whole way.
Got two, one for me and one for my brother who fishes the river with me.
I walk three dogs at once. Can't swat anything. Made the poultice last night, so cool and minty.
Isn't this just recipes you can find online for free?
I tried the internet first, Hank. Nobody gave amounts or how long. Page 81 does.
Groom in Ocala. The wash rack is fly central. Ordering tonight.
Gardener here, hands in the dirt all day. The mint paste smelled lovely.
My wife took the second copy before I'd even opened the box.
Kildare girl here too! Horse flies on the Curragh were just as bad.
Ah, Kerry, they follow us everywhere. Plantain grows over there as well.
I'm on blood thinners. Is page 81 okay for me?
Page 31 is the one that says "Avoid using with blood thinners." Page 81 says "Safe for most."
Fly fishing in waders, both hands on the rod. Deer flies had a feast. Book's on the way.
Made the calendula balm on page 76 for my hands. Smells amazing.
Hot walker at Keeneland. Showed this to my trainer and she ordered three.
Plantain is all over my back lawn and I never knew what it was.
The sleep syrup on page 31 is lovely before a 5 a.m. feed.
Ordering tonight. Two copies, one for the barn.
Barrel racer. Bitten in the alley before every run. This is going in my trailer.
Can anybody vouch for this? Horse flies eat me alive every time I tack up.