Hillydale Horse Welfare and Research

04/11/2024

I wrote a thing.

Racehorses take centre stage during the Spring Racing Carnival but how exactly are they treated during their daily lives?

20/10/2024

Another important and informative presentation from Cristina Wilkins on the topic of how curb bits actually work and how they are likely to be experienced by horses.

There's been some new research doing the rounds in which the study authors, and many in the equestrian community, are concluding that curb bits might be kinder for horses, because peak rein tensions are lower on curb bits (when used with a snaffle bridoon) than on snaffle bits used in isolation.

A key problem with the study is that the researchers only measured rein tension- the tension applied by the rider/horse on the reins/rings of the bits. What they didn't measure, is how much pressure is felt on the tongue/bars of the horse's mouth. That is-how much pressure was actually exerted on the mouthpiece- the part of the bit (along with the curb chain) that directly interfaces with the horse's body.

While this question remains to be definitively answered, Cristina's pilot experiment and investigation of the characteristics of the lever action of curb bits dispels some long held assumptions as well as demonstrating that the amount of pressure applied to the mouthpiece of a curb bit can by four times the amount of pressure exerted on the reins.

So while it feels "lighter" and "softer" to the rider, the horse is feeling four times the effect. This makes it highly motivating for the horse to respond to escape or avoid escalations in pressure.

So rather than being "kinder", curb bits allow riders to exert considerable pressure for very little effort- which is the whole point of a lever.

Using the rein tension felt by riders does not tell us what the horse is experiencing and if we are going to make claims about what's better for horses, we need to be able to quantify what the horses are actually experiencing.

Sadly, this important fact is missing from much of the discussion about the findings of this study and many have made a range of claims about the putative welfare benefits of curb bits that are not supported by the type of evidence that was collected.

This is a must watch presentation.

This presentation is about the mechanical action of curb bits, like the ones in double bridles. Curb bits are very powerful, second-class levers of the 'nutc...

05/10/2024

A simply brilliant article about animal welfare- with direct relevance for horses. What's meaningful for animals is how we provide them with good welfare, not just what we know how to measure.

PDF | On Nov 1, 2017, Jake S. Veasey published In pursuit of peak animal welfare; the need to prioritize the meaningful over the measurable | Find, read and cite all the research you need on ResearchGate

25/09/2024

Freckle at 20. Freckle was sent to me to be sold. His then owner described him as quirky which turned out to be an accurate description of his personality.
After a tricky first ride he seemed to find me predictable enough that subsequent rides were trouble free for me at least and I was able to ride him bitless with ease. So I offered him for sale including video of him calmly jumping in a halter.

We had a number of people come out see him and after going calmly for me, the wheels would fall off when the buyer hopped on. Even with very relaxed experenced riders Freckle exhibited considerable anxiety, rushing, jogging, throwing his head around and so on. He seemed destined to not be sold.

One day a buyer came out to try another horse and her husband rode Freckle while we went on a trail ride. Freckle went very calmly with the husband and they offered to buy him to use as a loan horse for a riding group.

We negotiated a price and Freckle's owner agreed and a date was set for both horses to be collected.

But what should have been a good day for my business filled me with dread, because I knew how anxious being ridden by unfamiliar riders could make Freckle feel.

So I rang up the owner, explaining my misgivings on the deal I had just made on her behalf and she made me an unbelievably generous offer to give me Freckle. She lost the sale price and I lost the commission and I had to have a very uncomfortable conversation with the buyer who was understandable pretty peeved, though did end up taking the other horse.

That was 9 years ago. Freckle's been living here with his friends, retired for 7 of those years and free to come and go as he pleases. I'm supremely grateful for his previous owner who cared more that her horse ended up somewhere where his quirks could be accommodated and who trusted me enough to be that home, despite the financial cost to her.

22/09/2024

Getting your eye in. Beautiful horse. Am sure the rider would never knowingly want to harm him but this kind of riding is completely normal in many equestrian activities.

21/09/2024

Interesting choices here. There's still a way to go before horse welfare is prioritized in equestrian sports.

I doubt very much that these riders want to hurt their horses or cause them harm. But there's a lot of equipment being used here that has a high potential to negatively impact the welfare of their horses.

19/09/2024

Yes to this.

19/09/2024

Timely advice.

While operant conditioning provides a 'toolbox' for trainers, there are other factors that influence the outcome of learning and therefore the learning modality that a trainer might choose. It is critical to remember that animal training is largely dependent on motivation.

In the natural world, there may be a number of conflicting motivations, and the most compelling one will be responded to.

This is an important concern for safety. While it is true that food can be a highly effective primary reinforcer, and may out-compete the motivation for avoidance of aversive stimuli to some extent, it is unlikely to out-compete the motivation for a flight response in strongly frightening situations.

In this light, one might see that negative reinforcement and positive punishment could out-compete positive reinforcement and negative punishment for relevance. However, this does not account for the insecurity of the particular animal, which may also have an influence on the outcome.

For example, a well-trained horse motivated through positive reinforcement may be less likely to be fearful than one poorly trained through negative reinforcement in challenging circumstances.

Given the high death and serious injury rates of humans in horse–human interactions, the importance of positive, negative and combined reinforcement protocols in challenging situations needs to be explored further.

An excerpt from Equitation Science, 2nd Edition - Andrew McLean, Paul McGreevy, Janne Whinther Christensen & Uta König von Borstel.

18/09/2024

Really great advice here.

https://www.facebook.com/61550888874234/posts/122209542224029629/?mibextid=rS40aB7S9Ucbxw6v

15/09/2024

Training that puts the horse's experience at the centre. This approach is the future of sustainable recreational horse use.

15/09/2024

This one's for the history buffs- A treatise against the use of bearing reins and harsh bits in Victorian England:

"Bits and Bearing Reins- with observations on horses and harness" by John Forham Fowler. Went through at least 7 editions, published in the late 19the century.

Making all the same arguments being made to today.

How sensitive are the mouths of horses. How insensitive human hands are in comparison.

How harsh bits hurt.

How pointless fashions cause harm to horses (heads up not down as is the case today).

How good people look away.

How status and power influence whether authorities will act against those causing the harm.

Free to download.

https://archive.org/details/bitsbearingreins00flowrich

14/09/2024

Words are the easy bit. What if, the very essence of the sport is bad for welfare? What then?

14/09/2024

Just a bit of "fun"....

14/09/2024

Loves his job....

13/09/2024

Interesting approach to genuinely prioritizing horse welfare once the horses are no longer able to generate value for owners.

The farm is considering implementing an age limit for its sales consignment, and opening its in-house retirement program to client mares

13/09/2024

Just regular, routine disregard for the subjective experience of the horse. I have seen this kind of riding in the past and to my shame, was mute, like the young owner of the horse.

The horse's responses to the inescapable and uncontrollable stress of whip cracks, spurs, bit pressures and psychological confusion are met with retribution dressed up as "education".

This rider and this,approach of forcing the horse to comply and randomly exposing to higher intensities of painful stimuli it's desperately trying to escape is so commonplace in our industry.

The attitudes and beliefs that underpin the behaviours on show here are bog standard. Instead of receiving our empathy, the horse receives our frustration and even anger, because our primary concern is bending it to our will to achieve our goals.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?fbclid=IwY2xjawFRk7tleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHYE1D0Rg2QyNIZSIaMldRmbgaYWx5jBz3dp-WQsINQ65lKyAgrFRelhJDw_aem_50JgiyLQaDhSZsRCybLFgQ&v=_RI1MRnJ4kE&feature=youtu.be

Horse welfare warning- The Rider behind the Laugh!Do you want to see the real attitude towards horse welfare of the person laughing in the Dujardin video? Ds...

11/09/2024

Published today: mouth opening in dressage horses is associated with the presence of oral lesions. Currently free to access.

11/09/2024

Great post. Horses did not evolve to go round in endless circles or carry much weight on their hindquarters. They are designed to be on the forehand (and in a natural outline carry around 65%) of their total weight on their forelegs. Far from being a sign of something going wrong, forehand going and a long neck with nose forward and poll at the highest point, with well developed ventral neck muscles is how horses are designed to move.

It's us who have decided that this is "incorrect". Indeed, in the most physically demanding equestrian sport of endurance, this is the posture we see.

When are horses are "hollow" it's a perfectly normal response to the physical demands of carrying a rider.

10/09/2024

Extremely disturbing and dissappointing

Double bridles in FEI dressage are considered a 'sport' matter and not a 'welfare' one, which makes them ineligible for review until 2026.

10/09/2024

Indeed.

07/09/2024

This report is focussed on the structure of the brains of birds, but it has relevance to horses. The relevance is, that just because horses (or birds) lack some brain structures or regions associated with intelligence or cognitive ability in humans, doesn't automatically mean that they also lack all of those cognitive abilities .

It's a very commonly claimed by people in the horse world that horses lack a prefrontal cortex and because of that, they can't do the kind of higher order thinking that other species can.

While I still believe, based on a range of other kinds of evidence, that this is likely to be true, a huge amount of what is known about human cognition was discovered as a result of studies on rats- who also lack a frontal cortex. Like horses and now birds, rats have other structures that do many of the jobs that our frontal cortices do- including decision making, response inhibition, some emotion processing and a range of the things we humans do.

While I am in full agreement with equitation scientists who warn against over-estimating equine cognitive abilities and blaming them for deliberately sabotaging our goals in training or competition ("he knows what the right thing to do but chooses not to do it to p**s me off"), I think there is a danger in underestimating what horses can learn, know and feel.

One of the principle moral justifications for continuing to use aversive training methods based on bits, whips, spurs and the positive punishment-negative reinforcement continuum is that horses are unlikely to have any insight into their loss of agency in these scenarios. That is, they don't have a concept of their enslavement, they just do what they can to escape and minimise their exposure to aversive pressures, and in the process, we gain control of their behaviour and get them to do all those amazing and not so amazing things.

I think in many ways this lets us of the hook, because the fact they may not have the kinds of insights into their situation that we do (we know we are the ones in control and we are the ones who make the decisions in such a way that makes compliance the easiest option for the horse), doesn't mean the horses don't experience the consequences of those decisions we make for them.

We would not say it was OK to force children to do things that expose them to harm or risk of harm simply because when they are young, they lack the cognitive skills to have insight into their lack of control and agency over what is done to them. Yet this is essentially the argument we make about horses to justify taking away their choices and exposing them to risks of harm they would not choose if they could avoid them.

Based on this research in birds, it's entirely possible that over time, we will learn that horses' brains and cognitive abilities are more complex than we thought, and even if we don't the fact that they aren't as smart as us isn't really a solid ethical justification for depriving them of their agency and forcing them to things we know they don't enjoy or choose.

Circuitry of the pallium mirrors the mammalian neocortex