Understanding Your Horse

Understanding the reasons why a horse behaves as it does goes a long way to becoming a better horseman and to improving your horse’s ability to perform the actions you ask of him. Behavior patterns convey messages to other horses and to the handlers.

BEHAVIOR PATTERNS

Protective Behavior--This includes all the ways horses react to predators and the environment. Horses naturally respond in flight or running away when threatened. To the horse something on its back is a predator trying to kill him. So he reacts by bucking. The horse also responds to the weather by seeking shelter, turning his tail toward the wind, standing in the sun to warm up, or seeking a breezy hilltop.

Ingestive Behavior

This is how a horse responds to food and water. Because of the horse’s digestive system, he must take in small amounts of food at a time and eat frequently. The horse is naturally a grazing animal, preferring open areas and young tender grasses.

Eliminative Behavior

The horse tends to deposit its urine and feces in certain areas and graze in other areas. He also prefers not to urinate or defecate while walking. Almost all horses will defecate when approaching a trailer or immediately on entering it.

Sexual Behavior

This involves courtship and mating and affects stallions, mares and geldings. The mare’s behavior and personality change during estrus (heat). Geldings may still be possessive of mares as a stallion would. Keep the sexes separate if possible.

Care-Giving/Seeking Behavior

This is usually the behavior between the mare and foal. An example is imprinting, where the foal at birth identifies with its mother. The mother wants to stay close to the foal and whinnies when separated. Another type of Care Behavior occurs among other horses, such as standing head to tail to fight off flies or scratch each other on neck or back.

Combat Behavior (Agonistic)

Associated with fighting, aggression, submission, and attempts to escape. This is also related to the “pecking order” in a group of horses, where one is dominant over others in the group. Some examples are kicking, biting, and striking.

Gregarious Behavior (Mimicry)

Tendency to copy or mimic another member of the herd. Examples are following the herd in the pasture, being hard to catch, learning cribbing or wood chewing from the horse in the next stall.

Investigative Behavior

This involves the way horses inspect their environment, especially new surroundings or objects. They look at, smell, touch, listen, and sometimes run away. These reactions must be considered when training or when riding in new areas.

MAJOR SENSES

Hearing. The eyes and ears almost always work together and therefore provide an excellent indicator of where a horse is looking. If the ears point straight ahead, the horse is looking straight ahead. A wildly active ear can indicate blindness.

Touch

 The areas in which the horse is most sensitive are the nose, eyes, ears, legs, flank, withers, and the frog. Touch is the most important sense in riding and training. The rider touches through the horse’s mouth, neck, and ribs as they cue the horse. He can communicate his directions or cues as well as his emotions-- tension or calmness, excitement, and doubt or loss of confidence.

Sight 

Be aware of where and how a horse sees. Many horses with shying, head tossing, and general confidence problems can be cured by education through vision. Try to see yourself as the horse sees you. This will help you avoid any training inconsistencies.

The amount of forward vision is related to the degree of trainability. A horse with “pig eyes” (small eyes set too far to side of horse) or a Roman-nosed horse (face is convex, rather than straight or dished) cannot see in front of him as well.

The horse has monocular vision, which means that he can see separate objects with each eye at the same time. This increases his side vision, but makes it harder for him to judge depth.

When the horse looks at one object, farther than four feet away, with both eyes he is using binocular vision.

The headset of the horse also determines what he is able to see in front of him. His conformation influences this headset.