The Pursuit of Better Horsemanship and Equine Husbandry

The horse world is wrought with opinions, some blunter and louder than others but with said opinions always comes the risk of harsh judgment when you post your riding, handling or horse care publicly. Oftentimes, when people have some form of anonymity from posting on online forums, they will voice their opinions in a much harsher manner than they otherwise would, increasing potential for hurt feelings and risking how well their commentary may be received, even if true. This is one of the biggest shortcomings of the horse world, as it vastly increases the level of defensiveness the average rider ought to feel when posting their riding journey or responding to comments on public posts from other people. This inherent defensiveness that is created in equestrians can result in the creation of an echo chamber, where people who have been reprimanded harshly by others for their horsemanship choose to completely ignore even the kindly voiced information from people on “the other side” and defer to engaging only with groups that completely support what that rider views to be correct.

This is why, aside from cases of outright abuse or when there is risk of immediate danger, I think that education is better done in a generalized setting. Write blog posts with your opinions on important training and welfare topics. Create your own post on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter with your thoughts on certain training and care beliefs and use your own platform to reach people whose thoughts you can provoke in a manner that feels less antagonistic, because they don’t have to feel personally targeted. This is one of the more successful ways to incite change without putting people on the immediate defense. While people may be unfairly reactionary to statements that aren’t targeted or were meant with well intentions, we can’t exactly blame people for these reactions that at their core are meant to protect and safeguard their feelings.

Speaking from my own experiences as well as what I’ve witnessed on other people’s pages online, equestrians can often be needlessly cruel. It doesn’t take much in the way of repeated cruelty for a person to resist any outward commentary due to viewing anything that makes them uncomfortable as a threat. It’s a psychological protection mechanism that many people adopt as a means of shielding themselves from harmful comments. I can attest to this for myself, joining social media and being active in the equestrian community as young as I was (just 14 or 15 years of age) put me in the throes of some pretty aggressive arguments and unkind commentary. It incited anxiety and fear when I would post things about my horses, never knowing how they would be received, and even more neutral comments could come off as antagonistic if I was looking at everything through the lens of being criticized. It resulted in me misinterpreting a lot of well-intentioned comments and the defensive nature of this still often causes me to read a lot of comments in a harsher light than the original author may have intended. This is one of the problems of the online era, without being able to hear tone of voice or read facial expression, you never know someone’s true intentions and things can come off as an attack even when they absolutely are not.

So, how can we move forward with educating the masses within an industry that has no regulatory body to ensure professionals are qualified to be effectively teaching new riders horsemanship, equine ethology and correct care practices? This is a tough one and it largely is reliant on equestrians growing comfortable with the discomfort of realizing their shortcomings in care practices, what “ideal” horse care looks like and how to handle with enriching the life of a horse living within an “unideal” circumstance. It requires the realization that you are not a terrible horse owner or rider if there is room for improvement in your care or if because of your geographic location, you’re limited on to what extent you can provide a more natural equine environment for your horse.

For example, turnout and socialization are arguably one of the most pressing factors in horse care we need to change the general public opinion of. It is still far too common to see barns being built with stalls with full wooden walls, no windows or ability for horses to physically interact with each other, even through bars. It is equally as common to see individual turnout as the norm, often with spaces in between the paddocks or high electrical wires to prevent contact. These practices disallow horses one of their core needs as a herd animal: socialization. Too many trainers are not doing their part in teaching equine ethological needs and the fact that many of the stress behaviours we witness in horses are a direct result of the lifestyles we mandate for them is something that is glossed over too often. This necessitates the need for outside sources, such as online equestrian voices, to become more effective at producing other forms of information in a manner that makes it most likely for the people who need to see it to read it and actually have the information land for them. This cannot be done in the typical commenting on someone’s personal post in an extremely antagonistic manner and expecting them to learn from it. It has to be done by providing adequate resources and gently trying to push someone in the right direction.

The perfect ideal for horses care wise is, of course, group turnout on large plots of land with free choice forage, different footings, hills, forests and other forms of shelter. Of course, in the modern world, especially within cities this isn’t always possible. Equestrians need to grow comfortable with the fact that they can still better the lives of their horses without being “the best” or offering “the best” scenario for them. Recognizing where you might be limited in offering the ideal circumstance for your horse and enriching the life that you can offer them is still horse care. You may not have group grass turnout, but you could help emulate the act of walking and foraging by providing your horse with an interactive toy like a hay ball that they can follow and push, while eating the forage out of it. This stimulates motion, can be used in a paddock or a stall and helps to entertain the horse by providing them a form of cognitive enrichment, allowing them some form of autonomy over an environment that may otherwise provide little in the way of autonomy. Giving horses some form of “control” over their environment has shown some marked improvements in overall psychological welfare and can allow for owners to make the best of unideal circumstance like lengthy periods being stalled or the limits of small, dry lot paddock turnout individually.

The thing about this, though, is that the ability to enrich the life of an animal is reliant on the owner’s realization of what needs to be enriched. The welfare conversation for horses is an important one because of the massive number of horse people who are so misled from day one to believe that horses “need” stalls and that they enjoy being confined and isolated, that set hay feedings followed by hours without forage are healthy and normal when there is so much in the way of information out there now showing that these things are not the case. Study on horses is still developing but what we do know about them is that they are a foraging animal who trickle feeds, meaning they are eating smaller amounts of food near constantly throughout the day, their main form of sustenance coming from forage such as grass or hay. Since they are designed to be eating for most of their day, their stomach produces large amounts of acid that mean when left empty, the stomach is extremely prone to ulceration due to excess amounts of acid. The act of chewing forage encourages salivary production which, in turn, helps to buffer the stomach acid. Chewing of forage is more time consuming than chewing of concentrated feeds such as grain, meaning more time spent chewing = more saliva to buffer the stomach + providing the horse with a relaxing behaviour that keeps them busy. In modern diets, many boarding facilities do set feeding times, often feeding small amounts of hay 3-4x a day. If the horses are fed small enough amounts that they finish long before the next feeding, they are left with an empty stomach that causes increasing discomfort along with boredom.

Even within boarding establishments with set feed times and barn managers unwilling to change the schedule, you can help to provide your horse with the means to forage constantly with aforementioned hay balls or slow feed hay nets. Slow feeders are great as they can slow the intake of easy keepers, thereby preventing weight gain from eating too much, while still allowing them to have constant access to hay. There is a misconception about horses that they can have too much hay or shouldn’t be eating constant when it quite literally is what they’re wired to do. While we have metabolic issues and other problems that can necessitate more careful hay feedings, these can still be accompanied by slow feed nets to even allow these horses the ability to forage throughout the day. By providing a hay net to allow for constant forage, you lower your risk of ulcers, and thereby, colic along with lowering boredom and the risk of stereotypic behaviours such as weaving, cribbing or stall walking that typically go hand in hand with boredom induced stress.

Ideally, horses should either not be stalled or should be spending more time with free access to a paddock or field than they do confined in a stall. We need to be more mindful of how we word horses’ turnout schedules. Instead of saying they get 6 hours turnout, say they’re stalled 18 hours. It may change how you view it. Could you imagine leaving your dog kennelled 18 hours? Could you imagine being alone in a room with little in the way of entertainment for 18 hours? Doesn’t sound very fun, but if you can’t get around this, you need to work a bit harder to find your horse means of self entertaining while stall bound. Toys such as likits or the Uncle Jimmy’s Hanging Balls are great for food motivated horses to self entertain while being rewarded for it by way of nice tasting treats. Some horses enjoy engaging with toys like Jolly Balls, exercise balls or even “cheap” DIY toys such as cutting a few holes in an empty milk jug and filling it with grain or hay pellets. The horse can manipulate the milk jug to cause treats to fall out, giving it a reliably consequence of playing with the toy and thereby allowing for some level of autonomy in a situation where their autonomy has been stripped due to inability to exit the stall at will.

Stalls with windows and bars between them can improve welfare by allowing horses to interact through the bars or hang their heads over the window to watch the goings on.

For modern barns, in my opinion, best case scenario is providing in/out stalls with attached paddocks, even if paddocks are on the smaller side. In/out stalls give horses the ability to walk in and out and get differing forms of stimulation due to being able to watch the goings on within the barn as well as outside. I can personally attest to the reduction in stress behaviours that I have seen in these types of barns. My preference for paddocks is for them to be long enough that the horse can, at the bare minimum, trot, but ideally have at least a few canter strides before hitting a fence. Contrary to popular belief, small turnouts are actually more likely to influence injury if horses play in them, due to sharp turns or sudden stops. So, whenever possible, you’re probably better off providing large turnouts even if your horse runs more. Remember, the more space horses get to self exercise, the less explosive behaviour you’ll see upon turning them out. Excess excitement when released into bigger areas is a symptom of their lack of ability to express their energy and self exercise within smaller living spaces, so horses who spend more time stalled are much more likely to come out of the stall exhibiting far more highly stimulated and excitable behaviours.

Remember, your horse is a herd animal. If you can’t have them in group turnout, be mindful of letting them have a “herd” even if its just by making friends through the bar of a stall. As a boarder or client of a riding stable, you do have some say, especially if we start to demand for reform in horse care in large groups. You are the paying client. You are why these facilities can remain open and exist. The higher we increase expectations for modern horse living and the more we educate, the more pushback there can be to ask barn owners to be more considerate of equine ethology in their building practices. While mass changes such as building paddock paradises may be cost prohibitive for many places, building windows between stalls or allowing for some form of interaction in paddocks is less pricey and time consuming.

I also want to reiterate that by providing your horse with a better living situation, you’re likely to improve the rides you have on them, their level of engagement with you and their overall happiness. Many behavioural problems under saddle are, unfortunately, the result of environmental frustration. Horses who spend more time stalled and thereby less time in motion are also at far greater risk of colic, the #1 cause of equine mortality other than old age. They’re also more prone to ulcers due to stress (and also set feed times) along with circulatory, respiratory and joint and soft tissue problems. Standing stagnant for lengthy periods of time doesn’t allow for joint fluids to circulate how they should and in young horses, reduced motion results in a reduction in bone density.

Even for competition horses, in terms of lasting soundness and increased fitness along with the obvious psychological benefits, turnout for as long as possible is the superior option. I wish I had the funds to run a long scale study on this because while there are several depicting the health implications associated with too much stalling, there are not enough long scale studies done on soundness of pasture-reared horses versus stalled ones, would it not be interesting to see if this was a largely contributing factor to the breakdown rate in racehorses and injuries in show horses? The studies we do have certainly point in the direction that this could make a substantial difference.

I am also understanding and sensitive to many of the concerns people with horses who have not had the ability to properly socialize from a young age tend to have. Aggression to other horses and resource guarding is a big one, but, these behaviours would not be seen in the excess that they are IF we properly managed horses and allowed for more socialization within barns. Turnout anxiety is another one, horses pacing to the point of being lathered or running around erratically, causing owners to fear about injury. This is a valid concern, however, it is fixable. Just like anxiety under saddle, which many riders encounter when introducing horses to new environments like horse shows, environmental anxiety in the paddock can be fixed. Any creature, humans included, would be likely to experience anxiety if they’re taken from a low stimulation, small area and thrown out into a much larger, highly stimulating area like a field adjacent to other horses. There is a needed adjustment period and with supervised turnout or even starting the process out by utilizing ground work, you can help to counter condition the anxiety associated with being out. I’ve had great success taking many, many racehorses who go from 24/7 stalling in 10x10 stalls to 24/7 outdoor living and while there absolutely is an adjustment period that can be stressful to watch and deal with, they all pull through it and are happier because of it. We just need to try as hard to better our horses’ wellbeing in their time off rider, we need to try as hard as we do when we are fixing under saddle issues that disrupt our ability to enjoy the horse.

As a horse owner, you can only do your best with the resources you have. I have the utmost respect for owners who go out of their way to enrich lives of horses living in limited space and are aware of the shortcomings of certain care practices and as a result, work to enrich and adapt the life of the horse to limit stress behaviours and depression. Whether you realize it or not, you are helping to lead the charge of better equine welfare by setting a good example to people in traditional boarding facilities on how they can benefit their horse’s wellbeing and reduce stress behaviours. My horses all live out 24/7 in a herd with a shelter but my area is limiting due to the immense amount of yearly rain, limited land space and expensive living costs. It isn’t possible to maintain a grass pasture year round unless you have acres upon acres to rotate on. As a result, the horses here are living largely on dry lots and owners must accommodate this by providing adequate forage. Similarly, most boarding barns only offer smaller individual paddocks, sometimes with seasonal pasture. Group turnout can be difficult to find. Group turnout on large plots of land even harder. My horses’ field isn’t massive, but they do have room to run. They can practice natural behaviours and all of their 5 Freedoms are met. I watch closely for stress behaviours and work to enrich their turnout to help accommodate for any of the boredom and stress that can come with the lack of ability to move around on large enough land to seek new scenery andd different terrain. But, is it the perfect ideal? No. Are they doing better than many horses in my area? Absolutely. All I can do as an owner now, is continue to work on my ability to provide them with something better in the future while taking solace in the fact that my horses are perky, playful and happy horses full of personality and do not exhibit stereotypic behaviours. They don’t have the amazing deal horses in more rural areas have when they get to run on hundreds of acres, but their needs as domesticated animals are being met and most importantly, their social needs are being met.

Horses are incredibly resilient and tolerant animals. We frequently move them around, forcing them to lose affiliations with other horses that they may have made. They have to adapt to entirely new environments, new riders, completely different expectations that may not be well linked to what they had learned prior and they do this well and largely without complaint. They adapt to less than ideal circumstance and cope with stress admirably and, for whatever reason, they still try super hard to do what we ask them to do in sport, even if their environment is causing psychological distress. We owe it to them to do better. They honestly put up with so much from us and do it with such incredible strength and grace. The least we can do in return is push for more horse-conscious boarding and training practices and if we succeed in doing so, we will likely see a complete overhaul in how our horses work for us. If they can perform as well as they do while being psychologically unsound, imagine the things they can do in the absence of environmental stress.

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