How Intelligent Are Horses?

Research shows they are far smarter than we think.

"Sorry to say, but horses are pretty dumb. You have to drill and drill and drill for them to learn anything. And don't expect that they'll remember it tomorrow." That's what a trainer told me many years ago, based on her years of training horses.

But mounting evidence indicates that such "folk wisdom" is dead wrong. Horses are a lot more intelligent that we think they are.

Why does that matter? Because as equine researchers point out, training is enhanced when the training methods employed exactly match the mental abilities of the horse.

So what are the mental abilities of the horse? Here's a brief summary based on scientific studies.

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1. Your Horse Knows Who You Are And Whether You're Naughty or Nice

How We Know This: Researchers at Oklahoma State University in Tulsa found that horses could discriminate between photographs of a particular person’s face vs. her sister. Other studies have shown that horses can recognize people and horses that they have only seen before in photographs, and remember them for up to 10 years even without further contact. They show particularly good memory for trainers who use positive reinforcement.

A team of British researchers at the University of Sussex tested 72 horses who heard an audio recording of their name being called by either a familiar or unfamiliar person, while the same two people stood in the horse's line of vision. Horses consistently focused their attention on the person whose voice was being played. The same results were obtained when both people were familiar.

2. Your Horse Is Suspicious Of Unfamiliar People

How We Know This: Horses are more obedient if a familiar person gives them a verbal command than when an unfamiliar person gives them a command. They also spend more time eyeing the unfamiliar person to see what they are up to.

When allowed to choose whether to enter an unoccupied space, a space occupied by a familiar person, and one occupied by an unfamiliar person, horses choose to hang out with the familiar person. They also prefer to approach humans who are facing and looking at them compared to those who are not.

3. Your Horse Knows What You're Feeling

How We Know This: The right side of the horse's brain is specialized for processing threatening stimuli, and they will preferentially examine scary objects with their left eye. (Information from the left eye is processed in the right brain.) When horses were shown photographs of angry human faces, they looked at them with their left eyes, their heart rates increased, and their stress hormones rose. When a handler or rider becomes stressed, horses experience a corresponding increase in biological stress responses in the horse.

4. Your Horse Learns Faster When He Gets To Hang Out With Other
Horses

How We Know This: Several studies have found that horses that are allowed pasture time with other horses learn quicker, display less undesirable behaviors (such as biting and kicking), and are less skittish around novel equipment than horses that are only kept in stalls or turned out alone.

5. Your Horse Learns Better with Reward Compared To Punishment

How We Know This: A horse’s emotional state can influence how well the animal learns and how willing they are to trust humans. When horses are given praise and reward, their heart rates are lower than when they are punished or given negative reinforcement. (In negative reinforcement, an unpleasant stimulus is applied until the horse complies and then it is released—such as pushing against the horse's flank until he moves over. In punishment, a negative stimulus is applied after the horse does something wrong—such as a as pulling a horse's head around to one's knee and holding it there because "the horse was bad".) Researchers in France found that ponies trained with positive reinforcement (as opposed to negative reinforcement or punishment) showed fewer stress responses (such as lower heart rate) during training. They also were better at remembering voice commands after eight months of no training, and were more willing to obey and interact with humans outside of the training context.

6. Your Horse Knows Who's Who In The Herd

How We Know This: Studies of wild horses found that even after a one-year separation, stallions were able to immediately recognize and separate out their mares from a much larger herd of mares.

At the University of Rennes, France, researchers filmed the behavioral reactions of 30 horses when they heard audio recordings of horses from their immediate social group, a neighboring group, and from unfamiliar horses. When the horses heard whinnies from their "buddies", they moved toward the source of the calls, but showed heightened alertness when they heard unfamiliar horse whinnies. These findings suggest that horses can distinguish familiar from unfamiliar horses on the basis of "vocal signatures".

7. Your Horse Prefers To Imitate Dominant Horses

How We Know This: Several studies have shown that horses can learn by watching other horses, but only when the horses they're watching are familiar to them and are dominant to them in their herd. In one study, horses watched a familiar dominant horse, a familiar subordinate horse, or an unfamiliar horse learn to follow a trainer around a pen. The researchers found that subordinate horses mimicked the behavior of the dominant, familiar horses, even when the dominant made mistakes. Dominant horses, on the other hand, didn't learn from subordinate horses or unfamiliar horses. In another study, horses were found to be less willing to follow a low ranking horse to a food source than they were to follow a high-ranking horse to the same food source.

9. Your Horse's Facial Expressions Are A Window To Her Mind

How We Know This: University of Sussex researchers have created a systematic atlas of equine facial expressions called EquiFACS. It is based on 15 hours of video footage of 86 horses interacting in a variety of situations. You can view some of these expressions here.

The information summarized in this article was based on this scientific paper: Brubaker, L., & udell, MA (2016). Cognition and learning in horses (Equus caballus): What we know and why we should ask more. Behavioral Processes, 126, 121-131. doi: 10.1016/j.beproc.2016.03.017.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27018202

Happy Riding!

Copyright Denise Cummins, PhD June 27 2018
The Thinking Equestrian

Denise Cummins has over 30 years experience as an equestrian and horse business owner. In The Thinking Equestrian, she shares valuable tips on caring for and training horses, giving riding instruction, and running a successful horse business.