TL;DR. A sunshade combo is a tight-weave UV-blocking fabric — its job is to stop coat fade, sunburn on pink skin, and heat-stress under dark coats. A fly mesh combo is an open-weave breathable mesh — its job is to block midges, mosquitoes, March flies and biting buffalo flies. Many Aussie horses need both at different times of day. The GTL PVC Shadecloth Combo is our 75% UV-block sunshade workhorse; the Lecanto Fly Mesh Combo and Ripshield Mesh Combo cover the bug front. Here’s how to decide, climate by climate, horse by horse.
What each one actually blocks — UV vs flies
Australian summer brings two completely different problems for paddock horses, and most rug buyers conflate them. The sun and the flies are not the same enemy, and the same rug usually can’t fight both at once.
A sunshade combo is built around a tight-weave outer fabric — the GTL Shadecloth uses a 75% UV-block PVC shadecloth weave that blocks three-quarters of incoming ultraviolet radiation while still letting heat dissipate. The fabric is opaque to UV but porous enough to breathe. It stops sunburn on pink skin, fades-out on grey and bay coats, and the secondary heat-stress that hits dark-coated horses (blacks, dark bays, brown thoroughbreds) standing in open paddocks during a Queensland summer afternoon.
A fly mesh combo is the opposite philosophy. It’s an open-weave mesh with holes too small for biting insects to push through but wide enough that air moves through freely. UV passes through — mesh combos do almost nothing for sunburn or coat fade — but March flies, buffalo flies, mosquitoes and biting midges hit the mesh and turn around. The horse feels the breeze, doesn’t feel the bite, and the bot fly eggs that latch onto leg hair in the heat of the day get blocked at source.
The sunshade case — when UV is the problem
Australia has the highest UV index of any developed country, and paddock horses sit in it for ten to twelve hours a day across summer. If your horse is any of the following, a sunshade combo earns its keep before fly mesh does:
- Grey horses and paints — pink skin around the muzzle, eyes and any white markings is prone to sunburn. Grey horses in particular have a lifetime risk of squamous cell carcinoma on UV-exposed skin, which veterinary skin oncologists have flagged repeatedly as one of the most preventable cancers in horses.
- Show horses — you’ve spent twelve months building coat colour; six weeks of unblocked summer sun fades a black to a rusty brown and a dark bay to a washed-out chestnut. A sunshade combo is the difference between presenting a horse and re-presenting one.
- Dark-coated horses in hot zones — a black or dark-bay coat absorbs significantly more solar radiation than a chestnut or grey. In a Toowoomba or Townsville summer that’s a real heat-stress risk, and a UV-blocking shadecloth keeps the coat surface meaningfully cooler.
- Horses with thin summer coats from a recent clip — clipped horses have lost their natural UV barrier. Same protection logic applies.
The GTL PVC Shadecloth Combo and matching PVC Shadecloth Rug are the workhorses for this job. Both use the same 75% UV-block fabric; the combo adds neck cover that protects the crest and mane, which fade fastest. The Sunshade Combo is the mid-weight cousin — sunshade fabric with a touch more body, useful when summer nights still drop and you want one rug that covers both.
Sunshade vs fly mesh — feature by feature
Pick the row that matters most for your horse this summer
The fly mesh case — when bugs are the problem
The other half of the Aussie summer story is the biting insects. Australia’s a hot, humid continent with three fly families that make a paddock horse’s life miserable from October through April: buffalo flies (north of roughly the NSW border, the “buffalo fly belt”), March flies (eastern Australia, peak February to April), and biting midges (coastal everywhere, especially the southern coast, the cause of sweet itch and Queensland itch).
The horses that absolutely need fly mesh, not sunshade:
- North Queensland and the Top End — buffalo flies bite repeatedly along the belly and midline, and the welts can develop into chronic dermatitis if the horse can’t escape them. Mesh is the difference between a comfortable horse and a horse that paces the fence line.
- Sweet-itch and Queensland-itch horses — these are allergic reactions to midge saliva, and the only practical control is physically excluding the midge. A fly mesh combo with belly coverage is the foundation of the management plan.
- Eastern Australia paddock horses through March-fly season — March flies are large, aggressive, and draw blood. A horse paddocked under a treeline through February is being bitten dozens of times an hour without mesh cover.
- Sensitive-skinned horses generally — some horses simply react badly to insect bites and develop wheals out of proportion to the actual exposure. Mesh from dawn through dusk is preventive medicine.
The customer voice on the unlined-canvas-and-mesh approach to NQ summer is unambiguous — this comment from a Wholesale Horsewear House customer in North Queensland sums up what working horse owners in the buffalo fly belt actually reach for:
The WHWH mesh combos that handle the bug side: the Lecanto Fly Mesh Combo is our most-shipped fly mesh, a fine-weave breathable combo with full neck coverage; the Ripshield Mesh Combo is the stronger-fabric option for horses who tear lightweight mesh on fence wire or scratch posts; and the Stradbroke Combo (Jute) is the heritage open-weave that has covered north Queensland horses through summer for decades.
The “I need both” reality
Most Aussie horses in the heat zones — SE Queensland, the Hunter, the Northern Rivers, the Darling Downs — are best served by owning both a sunshade combo and a fly mesh combo, and swapping them across the day. The pattern that works for the bulk of WHWH customers in those regions:
The Aussie summer rug cycle
One horse, two combos, three time-windows — this is how most owners run it
By day
Sunshade combo
From sunrise through the hottest part of the afternoon. Blocks 75% UV, keeps the coat from fading, stops sunburn on pink skin. Strip when the sun drops.
By evening
Fly mesh combo
From late afternoon through to morning feed. Midges and mosquitoes peak at dawn and dusk — this is when bites happen. Mesh blocks the bugs without trapping heat.
Through fly season
Both, rotated
Buffalo fly belt or heavy sweet itch country — rotate the sunshade on by day, mesh on by night, six months of the year. The horse never goes uncovered.
If your budget only stretches to one rug this summer, the deciding question is whether the bugs or the sun are doing more damage. A grey show horse in SE Queensland with no biting-insect history: buy the sunshade. A bay paddock horse on the Northern Rivers with a history of sweet itch: buy the fly mesh. A clipped show horse in Townsville with both problems: you genuinely need both, and we ship both Australia-wide.
The GTL PVC Shadecloth Combo — how it’s built
The GTL PVC Shadecloth Combo is the in-house WHWH design we’ve refined over the years since 2005. The construction is built around six specific choices, every one of which solves a problem we saw in earlier shadecloth combos on the market:
- 75% UV-block PVC shadecloth fabric — the same family of weave you see on commercial nursery shadecloth, in a horse-rug-weight grade. Blocks three-quarters of incoming UV while still breathing.
- Contoured backline — sits on the spine the way a fitted rug should, instead of bunching across the shoulders or sagging at the croup.
- Rump darts — stitched darts at the rump that follow the horse’s shape, keeping the rear of the rug from lifting in wind.
- Satin-lined mane and shoulder — the inside of the neck and shoulder is satin, which slides over the coat without pulling mane hair out or rubbing the shoulder bare.
- Full chest gusset — deep gusset at the chest so the horse can lower its head to graze and lift it to look around without the rug yanking against the wither.
- Sizing from 4′6 to 7′0 — deeper size range than most competitors, because shadecloth combos in the wrong size rub the shoulder raw in a week.
Around $88 retail, free Australia-wide postage on orders over $500. We also stock the matching PVC Shadecloth Rug for horses who don’t need or won’t tolerate the neck cover, and the Sunshade Combo for horses that need a touch more body weight.
Lecanto and Ripshield mesh combos — what each does differently
The two mesh combos in the WHWH range solve slightly different problems, and choosing between them depends on what kind of paddock your horse lives in and how rough they are on rugs.
The Lecanto Fly Mesh Combo is the fine-weave option. Tight enough that midges and the smaller biting flies don’t push through, light enough that the horse feels the breeze straight through it. Best for paddock horses on grass pasture with reasonable fence lines, sweet-itch horses, and any horse where heat dissipation is the priority. It’s the combo we ship most through November and December as the bug season ramps up.
The Ripshield Mesh Combo is the stronger-fabric cousin. Same mesh philosophy, but the fabric is built with a tougher weave designed for horses that tear lightweight mesh on barbed wire, scratch posts, or fence corners. If you’ve ever bought a fly mesh combo that lasted three weeks before a tear opened it up, the Ripshield is the answer. The trade-off is slightly less airflow than the Lecanto, but the durability gain is worth it for any horse that’s genuinely rough on rugs.
For value comparison across saddleries, the customer voice on WHWH’s pricing is consistent across the QLD horse community:
Fly veils and masks — the partner piece
Body cover only solves half the biting-insect problem. The other half is the face — the area around the eyes and ears where flies cluster the heaviest and where horses have least defence (they can’t flick a fly off the eye the way they can flick one off the flank). Every fly mesh combo should be paired with a fly veil or mask, and the choice depends on what kind of fly pressure you’re managing.
- Cayman Fly Mask — full-face mask with mesh over the eyes and ears, structured so the mesh doesn’t touch the eyelashes. The default choice for paddock horses through the heart of fly season.
- GTL Fly Mask with Nose — the WHWH mask with added nose cover, for horses with pink skin around the muzzle who burn or for horses that flies cluster on the nostrils.
- Fly Veil with 100% Nose Blockout — a heavier fabric over the nose for the worst-affected sunburn horses; pairs with a sunshade combo for full UV management.
- Fly Veil with Mesh Nose — lighter alternative for horses that don’t need full nose blockout but still get harassed by flies in the muzzle area.
- Plain Fly Veil — eye and ear cover only, no nose component. The everyday paddock veil for horses without sun-sensitivity issues.
- GTL Lycra Fly Hood — full lycra hood for horses being worked through fly season; stays in place during ridden work where a paddock mask would shift.
A note on fit: any fly mask or veil that touches the eyelashes will be rubbed off in the first hour. Look for masks with rigid eye darts or moulded eye cups that hold the mesh away from the eye. The Cayman mask in particular is engineered this way.
Picking your summer rug stack — three questions
Most rug guides walk through every weight band and every fabric and leave the buyer more confused than they started. Three questions get most horse owners to the right call:
Three questions, one summer rug plan
Answer all three honestly and the right combo (or combos) become obvious
Question 1
What’s the bigger threat — sun or bugs?
Grey, pink, dark-coated or show horse → sunshade. Sweet-itch, NQ buffalo fly belt, eastern March-fly country → mesh. Both → both.
Question 2
Day-only paddock or 24/7?
Day-only → one rug is enough. 24/7 paddock through summer → swap sunshade by day and mesh by night so the horse is always covered.
Question 3
How rough is your horse on rugs?
Gentle paddock horse → Lecanto fine mesh. Tears rugs on fences → Ripshield. Heritage canvas fan → Stradbroke Jute.
The Wholesale Horsewear House promise
We’re a family-run saddlery on 528 Alderley Street, Toowoomba, founded by Geraldine Lalor in 2005. We design the GTL rug range ourselves — including every sunshade and fly mesh combo on this page — and ship Australia-wide from our Toowoomba warehouse. The GTL Shadecloth Combo and Lecanto Fly Mesh are now stocked at saddleries across Queensland and NSW because working horse owners have asked for them at the counter year after year.
We sponsor Burrandowan Campdraft, Killarney Polocrosse Club, and the Steve Smith Horse Breaking show team — because the people who ride and break horses for a living are the ones whose feedback shapes the next year’s GTL range. Free postage on every order over $500. Phone us on (07) 4613 5599 if you want a recommendation for your specific horse and we’ll talk you through it. Browse our full horse rug range, or jump straight to summer horse rugs or mesh horse rugs.
Related reading from the Horse Rugs guide
What weight horse rug do I need? An Australian climate guide
Light, medium, heavy or arctic — the plain-English weight guide for Australian conditions, broken down by climate zone.
Synthetic vs canvas (jute) horse rugs — which fabric for your horse?
The Stradbroke Jute is a heritage canvas-mesh classic for NQ summer. Here’s when canvas beats synthetic and when it doesn’t.
Best horse rugs for sensitive-skinned horses
Sweet itch, Queensland itch, and horses with reactive skin — the rug choices that actually help.
Horse rug vs combo — when do you need the neck?
Neck coverage is the difference between a rug and a combo. Here’s when it matters for summer cover.
How to measure your horse for a rug
Wrong size = shoulder rub in a week. The WHWH method for measuring up your horse, step by step.
Sources
Guidance in this article reflects the typical experience of Australian horse owners across the WHWH customer base and is intended as general information. UV sensitivity, fly pressure, and sweet-itch reactions vary horse to horse and region to region — pink-skinned horses, sweet-itch horses, dark-coated horses in tropical zones, and horses with prior insect-allergy histories may need a specifically tailored approach. If in doubt about your specific horse, speak with your equine vet or call us on (07) 4613 5599 and we’ll talk you through it.
