Ear shyness and horses getting over the feeling of their ears being touched is something that so many horses have to get used to and it is seen a lot more often in mares but every horse can struggle with this.
For my mustang, one of the first things we did was get her used to having her face touched because even something as simple as that was such a big thing for her. Then when it came to getting a headstall/bridle on, it wasn’t just having her face and ears touched it was about having something around her face and ears as well. And helping horses learn new things when they are already nervous about having their ears just touched not just nervous about the headstall, having lots of patience is super important.
Something that I’ve done to help this is just make them getting their ears touched a really normal thing so when their eating or just hanging out around you give them scratches all up there neck and towards their ears alone with on their forehead and lots of positive energy and treats for when they start getting more comfortable or even welcome this.
Another thing that I learned is that there is a sweet spot right in between their ears that when you massage it can release positive endorphins and can be really calming for the horse.