A depressed horse. Photo by Shutterstock.

So much of what we have been taught about caring for and training horses is fundamentally wrong. It’s easy to get sucked into the whirlwind of misinformation that is the horse world as even outside of the horse world we see pop culture depictions of horse care emphasizing the animal’s perceived need to be in a stall as well as a display of stress behaviours as normal behaviours. Within lesson, training and show barns, it is extremely common for horses to be stalled for at least part of the day. This pushes the notion, even if unconsciously, that being stabled in individual housing is a prerequisite of good horse care. When you consider how new riders come into this atmosphere and soak up the teachings that they are told implicitly, as well as those that they learn via watching and asking questions, it really is no surprise that equestrians have been told to shrug off and ignore some of the most common signs of stress in horses.

This isn’t to say that horse people don’t value or love their horses. They do, they absolutely do. But, there is a certain level of ignorance to the actual biological needs of the horse as a species that is indoctrinated into riders from the beginning from their mentors. Learning to ignore some of the vices that are strongly correlated to our use and management of horses allows people to pretend that they’re not a problem, that they’re “normal” behaviours. Then, this is where these things become background noise and people tune out anything that would force them to question what they believe to be correct.

Happy, relaxed horses in a herd setting. Photo by Shutterstock.

If you walk through any boarding facility that doesn’t have socialization and space to move around for most of the day, you’ll probably see a whole laundry list of identifiable stereotypic behaviours, aka, “vices”. Everything from the obvious practice of cribbing to stall weaving to stall walking to head nodding to running teeth along the bars of the stalls… you name it. Much of these things that horse owners choose to view as quirks of the horse are a direct result of the stress the management imposes on the horse. Alternatively, while some horses may not adopt some of the more obvious stable vices, they may have increased levels of aggression. They may be more inclined to bite or kick or be otherwise difficult to handle. They may constantly be extremely excitable to ride and handle on the ground, requiring excessive lunging to quiet. The riders may view these things as the horse being “mareish”, “disrespectful” or “spirited”. So many of the ill behaviours that riders come to resent in their horses can be completely, or at least significantly, rectified by first addressing the environment the horse is in. Far too often, though, riders choose to instead punish the negative behaviours that their horse offers them. To the horse, this essentially forces them to quiet all outward expressions of frustration, many of which serve the purposes of alleviating some of the stress. This means that the horse is forced to withdraw, to give into the anxiety, depression or boredom, or instead, they may choose to lash out and become aggressive. If we offer our horses no environmental means of relaxing, self entertaining and releasing frustration, we cannot expect them to not search for ways to fulfil that need, even if they impact what we as human partners want to do with the horse.

Is this to say that all stalling is bad? No. I am a realist. I totally understand the various reasons for stalling but what I will say is that there is a culture of ignoring obvious welfare problems and choosing to deny that they are, in fact, a problem. The cognitive dissonance that is behind this perpetuates ignorance and can give other impressionable people the wrong idea of horse care. So, what I mean here is that no, stalling is not bad. But, people need to be mindful of the stress behaviours that may develop when horses are left stalled for lengthy periods of time with no ability to socialize, no toys or enrichment to interact with and self entertain and very often sitting with an empty stomach due to set feeding times that may not allow for trickle feeding. Similarly, the common occurrence of barns intentionally constructing stalls and paddocks to discourage socialization between horses is a very concerning thing to be as normalized as it is. As far as I am concerned, there are very few reasons that make it fair to the horse to wall up stalls so they cannot see other horses or to leave paddocks far apart so horses can’t interact with each other. Even interaction over a fence line is preferable to the tragedy that is a herd animal going without one of its most basic, core needs: a herd.

There is a ton of research on the implications of traditional housing practices and extremely compelling evidence to suggest that there are numerous ill effects linked to long periods of stalling and isolation of horses. Many of these effects are related to mental health and these are where we often see horses engage in odd, ritualistic behaviours as a means of self-entertaining or relieving stress. However, there are also physical defects seen in stalled horses such as reduced bone density as seen in young horses kept in stalls with limited exercise and increased risk of injury due to propensity to engage in erratic excitement behaviour to try to release pent up energy upon exiting their stall and having the means to move around. We have enough evidence to suggest that what we are doing, what we normalize even at the top levels of the sport, is not the best way for the horses. Price of the horse is not an excuse for deprivation of needs. Horses can be insured and well socialized, well adjusted horses in turnout are not found to be at greater risk of injury compared to stalled horses. Risk of injury due to perceived value of the horse doesn’t outweigh the detriments the horse faces. On top of this, if riders are willing to risk injury for sport and for their enjoyment of riding, it is utterly unacceptable to use this excuse as a reason to blatantly ignore one of the most crucial needs of a grazing herd animal.

Now, as a realist, I understand that there are areas that lack land and may not have the means to rectify the living situation of the horse to the extent to allow social, group turnout. With this in mind, riders still need to be honest with themselves about their horses’ living situation. You can acknowledge that what you have is not ideal and enrich the environment your area offers you to the best of your ability, but if you ignore there is a problem in the first place, how will you know to seek enrichment in order to make up for the shortcomings? Horses who have to be stalled for lengthy periods of time can be offered slow feed hay nets to encourage constant grazing. They can be offered varied types of forage in different areas of the stall to further mimic grazing behaviour. You can provide toys such as Jolly Balls, Likits or hay balls to help keep them entertained. Most importantly, we can start to completely revolutionize the idea of how we build barns. We can start to make it common place to allow windows or bars for horses to see and interact with one another between stalls. This seemingly small change has been found, in studies, to have a profound impact on the occurrence of stress behaviour.

“But what about horses fighting with each other?” Well socialized horses who haven’t been forced through isolation much of their lives are less likely to display aggression associated with resource guarding or environmental frustration. We will not see the same instance of horses “hating” all other horses if we adapt our keeping of them to limit stress and ensure they are receiving all of their 5 Freedoms relating to animal welfare. These basic freedoms are sadly ignored in a lot of barns, namely “freedom to express natural behaviour” and “freedom from stress and discomfort.”. If we better provide a lifestyle for our horses that encourages more natural behaviours and allows them to coexist with conspecifics in the manner they are supposed to, we will not run into many of the commonly used problems or excuses to avoid socialization or turnout.

“My horse doesn’t like turnout, they just pace and run!” This is another common excuse, one that, once again, fails to acknowledge why these intense stress behaviours exist. Ironically, many horse people would be able to acknowledge this as a clear stress behaviour in an animal such as a dog when they hear about a rescue dog with separation anxiety. But, in their horse, they will instead choose to view it as a personal preference because that is easy to come to terms with. Hear me out, if you were forced into a low stimulation, small environment with repetitive days and less unpredictability and then suddenly thrown out into a huge, louder and more highly stimulated area, would you be comfortable? Probably not. Your horse isn’t, either. The solution to this is to work as hard on this undesirable behaviour as you would for problems that affect your ability to ride and enjoy your horse. When stuff impedes our ability to ride, we are not so quick to just claim it’s a preference and allow it to happen. These high levels of anxiety that affect horses’ ability to live a happy and healthy life can also be addressed through training and an effort to help encourage relaxation and a slow introduction to allow anxiety to stay within a threshold that allows the horse to actually learn.

“But what about stallions?!” Stallions also need socialization. We wonder why stallions are labelled as these notoriously difficult, aggressive and unpredictable creatures but normalize keeping them in high stress living situations and treating them as a creature less deserving of the same things we offer more freely to horses of other sexes. Stallions can be socialized and coexist well with other horses and such keeping of them has been linked to reduced stress. Sure, they may not be able to be kept near mares but you can absolutely socialize a stud to enjoy social time out with some geldings. In some areas with large plots of land, stallions are even kept out together.

Horses seeking socialization by tactile touch, just out of reach. Photo by shutterstock.

We already know that stalling massively increases risk of colic and we also know that higher rates of stomach ulceration are correlated with stalling practice as well as diets high in concentrated grains and where horses could not graze constantly throughout the day. Colic is the number one cause of death in horses outside of old age, this is not a coincidence. Speaking from my anecdotal experience, frequency of colics dropped dramatically as soon as I started moving away from the traditional isolated stall and small paddock boarding, but outside of anecdotes, studies reflect this same though. Despite the tangible fear horse owners feel when the word “colic” is uttered, much of the horse world is actually doing little in the way to help to prevent this from happening. Of course, even in the best circumstances, horses can still colic but the fact of the matter is that we have a lot of research pointing to some of the main risk factors and they are correlated directly with management. There are even studies that have looked into the amount of space offered to horses and how that is correlated with stress.

I believe that deep down, horse people have to know that something isn’t right with how normalized certain horse husbandry practices are. I see horse people going after organizations like Sea World due to the animals there exhibiting stereotypic behaviours in too small environments. I’ve seen horse people complain about being cooped up, isolated and lacking social stimulation because of the pandemic. We know the feeling, the yearning for social contact. We know the feeling of being trapped, restless. We can even recognize this stress in other animals, sympathize with them and demand that there be change, that there be justice. And yet, so many people do not have this same insight when considering the care of their horse.

So, we have mental health issues, physical health issues and behavioural issues that affect horses’ aptitude in riding and training that are all correlated with poor management practice. There have been some noted clear differences in horse behaviour in studies when looking at horses who are kept stalled and those turned out and said differences are even seen under saddle. It is time that the horse world learns to adapt with the times and choose to work to improve the welfare of horses kept in traditional boarding practices. Even without needing to increase the space of land horses are kept on, there are still environmental changes that can be made in order to reduce stress and allow horses to practice more natural behaviours. It is time that we grow less comfortable with clear stress signals in our horses and start working to lessen the frequency at which these are seen by taking them as a symptom of a problem to change rather than just something to ignore.

You are your horse’s only advocate. They have no voice. When they try to communicate via their behaviour, they are too often punished and shut down or ignored. They become voiceless, ignored, lacking autonomy even in their “free time” outside of riding, waiting for their next moment of stimulation when the feed cart rolls around or when their rider returns. By addressing some of the common deficiencies of modern horse care, riders can also improve their horses’ rideability by limiting stress and frustration, allowing the horse to enter the arena with a more positive and relaxed outlook. We can strive towards being safer in our handling and riding of horses, especially when scared or stressed horses are so frequently the reason behind major injuries to humans. We can do better. We can work together to come up with solutions to help better meet the needs of horses, even on smaller, traditional barn properties. We just have to care enough to notice and if enough people just simply care enough to enrich the environment that they have, we could make some real positive change to the lives of many, many horses.

https://www.horseillustrated.com/horse-keeping-reduce-stable-stress

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0168159102001089

https://bvajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1136/vr.148.26.799

Possible influence of neighbours on stereotypic behaviour in horses

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fvets.2019.00162/full

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Noah_Cohen/publication/12902343_Dietary_and_other_management_factors_associated_with_colic_in_Texas/links/02bfe514074ffef3bc000000.pdf

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