Stress and the Working Horse

French equine research shows that dressage and intense schooling create much higher levels of stress in horses than of jumping, eventing and vaulting.

When we work too hard we suffer negative efforts such as anxiety and depression. Can the work we inflict on our horses result in similar effects?

The research indicated that horses, like people, faced stresses in their daily life involving troublesome human bosses, difficult interpersonal relationships, undue negative reinforcement and poor rewards.

These negative training experiences lead horses to switch off, becoming unresponsive and apathetic - the equine equivalent of work-related burnout in people.

In the study the horses were kept in identical situation with the only difference was in the kind of discipline they performed each day for an hour.

The scientists monitored the horses in their stables for behaviours called stereotypies - abnormal repetitive behaviours which serve no useful function. These include repetitive mouth movement, head tossing or nodding, windsucking, cribbing and weaving.

They found that the type of work performed by the horses each day had a significant influence on the prevalence and types of undesirable traits shown.

This raises an important thought for riders on the chronic impact of the way we work our horses and the dire affects that it can have on our beloved horses.

The researchers found that 65 of the 76 horse showed work related problems such as wind sucking, weaving and other steriotypies.

The horses were categorised as doing one of three kinds of work:

• Jumping/eventing/advanced-riding-school.
• Dressage/high-school.
• Vaulting.

Vaulting horses appeared to be the least prone to stereotypies and performed relatively 'mild types' such as tongue play, whereas dressage/high-school horses presented the highest incidence of stereotypies where several of these horses performed two or more types of stereotypies.

The dressage horses performed the 'more serious' stereotypies - cribbing, windsucking, head shaking.

So the next thought was, why would this be the case and how can we school our horses to high levels without detrimentally affecting them.

Dressage and high level schooling both expect horses to restrain from expressing emotions and put a strong physical constraint on the movements.  Riders which drive the horse forward into a fixed hand seem the cause the most damage to their horse's mental state.

This form of exercise restrains both physical and emotional way the horse expresses himself and this is what can explain the high prevalence and types of stereotypies observed in these horses.

Jumping, eventing or instruction horses were trained more to take long strides while moving forward in a less ritualised posture.

Finally, vaulting horses appeared the least prone to perform stereotypies and these were restricted mainly to tongue play. Vaulting horses had been chosen for their quiet temperament and spent their work time turning in circles, with voice orders.

The researchers pointed to earlier research suggesting that head shaking may be a lasting effect of strong bit action, resulting from damage to the trigeminal nerve, as riders work to keep their horse's head down.

This would explain why headshaking and nodding were performed more often by dressage horses as for most of their working time they have to keep their necks flexed in restrained gaits.

Although some work stressors involved here may be specific to equine work, others are clearly shared with other species, including humans: emotions suppression, interpersonal conflict, physical demands, lack of reward and negative future expectancy that are associated with depression in humans.

It points to inexperienced people riding in spurs into a fixed hand can further exacerbate reactions causing more severe reactions. 

The higher emotional responses of dressage horses in emotional tests provide further support for this hypothesis. Collected gaits may also be physically very demanding and these difficulties may frustrate the horse.

There are also other factors can be involved in development of stereotypies, including roughage availability like hay and pasture, heating diet, social deprivation, lack of exercise and genetic susceptibilities. The length of time spent in stables may also have an influence.

However, the results clearly showed that the discipline being performed by the horse influenced the degree to which they showed undesirable traits.

The research showed that for a variety of reasons both physical and emotional, the limited time spent with humans might affect the remaining daily life of the horses.

Of the 76 horses, 10 undertook eventing, 19 were show jumpers, seven worked in an advanced riding school, 17 performed dressage, 16 were high school and seven were used in vaulting.

So what do we do about it?  Research is always important, it gives us the opportunity to reflect on our own riding and change our behaviours to a healthy balance.

Here are some simple stress-busting tips:

1. Give your horse company with other horses whenever possible.
2. Feed your horse a grass/hay/fibre filled diet.
3. Give them space to run and 'be a horse' out in a paddock.
4. Mix it up, get out of the arena and have fun hacking your horse out or jumping.
5. No inexperienced person should wear spurs - it is abuse to stick spurs into your horse's tummy every stride and expect them to be happy.  Seek advise if you ride in spurs.  Have a friend video you so you can see what your spurs are doing to your horse.   Used correctly spurs have a place but most often they are not.
6. Love your horse, some people want drama in their lives and so reflect that onto their horse.  Stop and think, what emotions are you putting onto your horse? 

4 Comments

Add your Comment

Name*

Email

Message*

Enter the letters above

Get a different image