Equine Studies encompasses the scientific exploration and analysis of various aspects related to horses, including their physiology, behavior, genetics, nutrition, and management. This interdisciplinary field integrates knowledge from veterinary medicine, animal science, and equine management to enhance understanding of horse health and welfare. Topics within equine studies often include the study of equine anatomy, disease prevention, breeding practices, and performance optimization. Researchers and scholars contribute to this field by conducting experiments, field studies, and reviews that provide insights into improving equine care and management practices. This page compiles peer-reviewed research studies and scholarly articles that investigate diverse areas within equine studies, offering comprehensive insights into the complexities of horse biology and management.
Chapard L, Van Thillo A, Meyermans R, Gorssen W, Buys N, Janssens S.Show jumping is one of the most popular disciplines in the horse sector, which makes success in show jumping competitions an important breeding goal for many studbooks. Therefore, the genetic evaluation of show jumping performance is of major interest and this is the case for two Belgian Warmblood studbooks: the Belgian Warmblood horse and Zangersheide. In this study, first an improved phenotype for show jumping performance was developed, i.e. adjusted fence height based on a new non-arbitrary method to scale ranking and competition level, which are two major components of success in competiti...
Prutton AM, Lenaghan HAH, Baillie S.Simulation in veterinary education is an important means of providing a safe, welfare-friendly way for students to hone their skills prior to performing procedures on live animals. Students may not get many chances to practice passing a nasogastric tube and checking for reflux in live horses during clinical rotations and extra-mural studies. A low-cost equine nasogastric intubation model was created at the University of Surrey, allowing students to practice passing a tube and checking for reflux. Thirty-two equine veterinarians evaluated the model for realism, and its potential usefulness in t...
Maurício LS, Leme DP, Hötzel MJ.Stabled horses often experience negative emotions due to the inappropriate living conditions imposed by humans. However, identifying what emotions horses experience and what can trigger positive and negative emotions in stabled horses can be challenging. In this article we present a brief history of the study of emotions and models that explain emotions from a scientific point of view and the physiological bases and functions of emotions. We then review and discuss physiological and behavioral indicators and cognitive bias tests developed to assess emotions in horses. Hormone concentrations, b...
Elte Y, Acton K, Martin J, Nielen M, van Weeren R, Wolframm I.Individuals working in the field of veterinary care are regularly affected by their profession. High levels of responsibility to often provide life-saving health care to animals combined with having to manage owners' expectations and irregular working hours can cause considerable levels of work-related stress among professionals in equine veterinary practice. On the positive side, research also shows that working in the veterinary profession can have a positive impact on personal wellbeing and feelings of fulfillment. A limited number of studies has investigated work satisfaction and engagemen...
Siegers E, van den Broek J, Sloet van Oldruitenborgh-Oosterbaan M, Munsters C.Young Friesian stallions have to complete a 10-week training program (70-day test) for acceptance as a breeding stallion. Part one of this study showed that the 70-day test was too intense and led to reduced fitness. In the present (part two) study, the effects of an adapted training program were studied. Training frequency and minutes of cantering per week were lowered compared with part one. The external workload (EW) of sixteen stallions (3.4 ± 0.8 years) was monitored during the 6-weeks before testing (preparation period) as well as during the 70-day test. Standardized exercise tests (SET...
Rohlf CM, Garcia TC, Fyhrie DP, le Jeune SS, Peterson ML, Stover SM.Mechanical properties of arena surfaces are extrinsic factors for musculoskeletal injury. Vertical impact forces of harrowed and compacted cushion were measured at five locations on 12 arena surfaces (five dirt, seven synthetic [dirt and fiber]). Eight variables related to impact force, displacement, and acceleration were calculated. Surface temperature, cushion depth and moisture content were also measured. The effects of surface material type (dirt/synthetic) and cushion compaction (harrowed/compacted) on vertical impact properties were assessed using an analysis of variance. Relationships o...
Klecel W, Drobik-Czwarno W, Martyniuk E.Arabian show horses are well known for their exceptional beauty and elegance. The breed type, body conformation and movement are assessed during horse shows by licensed judges. The 5 judging categories are type, head and neck, body and topline, legs and movement, which are scored on a 20 point scale. It can be hypothesized that the scores in different categories are related to each other, and that the score for the most subjective type category depends on the scores for conformation categories. We analyzed 762 sets of average scores obtained by 583 unique horses at the World Championships. Cor...
Rumpel AS, De Carvalho AL, Vassoler JM, Schmidt ML, Mertz CC, Rozo CAC, Campos JK, Alievi MM. The aim of this study was to compare the biomechanical properties of two minimally invasive arthrodesis techniques of the equine proximal interphalangeal (PIP) joint (three transarticular 5.5-mm cortical screws [AO-3TLS] vs. two transarticular 7.0-mm headless cannulated multi-use compression screws [MUC-2TS]) in dynamic non-destructive testing and compression testing to failure. Methods: The experimental study included six pairs of cadaveric adult equine forelimbs; one limb from each horse was randomly assigned to one of the treatments, and the contralateral limb was submitted to the rem...
Evans JP, Meckstroth S, Garai J.Rhizomatous growth and associated physiological integration can allow a clonal dune species to potentially compensate for the selective removal of leaves associated with herbivory. is a rhizomatous clonal plant species that is abundant in the coastal dune environments of the southeastern United States that are inhabited by large feral horse populations. has been shown to integrate resources among ramets within extensive clones as an adaptation to resource heterogeneity in sandy soils. In this study, we hypothesized that clonal integration is a mechanism that promotes persistence in these co...
Schrenk D, Bignami M, Bodin L, Del Mazo JKCJ, Grasl-Kraupp B, Hogstrand C, Leblanc JC, Nielsen E, Ntzani E, Petersen A, Sand S, Schwerdtle T....In 2017, the EFSA Panel on Contaminants in the Food Chain (CONTAM) adopted a Scientific Opinion on the risks for animal health related to the presence of deoxynivalenol (DON) and its acetylated and modified forms in food and feed. No observed adverse effect levels (NOAELs) and lowest observed adverse effect levels (LOAELs) were derived for different animal species. For horses, an NOAEL of 36 mg DON/kg feed was established, the highest concentration tested and not showing adverse effects. For poultry, an NOAEL of 5 mg DON/kg feed for broiler chickens and laying hens, and an NOAEL of 7 mg DO...
Nishita Y, Amaike Y, Spassov N, Hristova L, Kostov D, Vladova D, Peeva S, Raichev E, Vlaeva R, Masuda R.The domestication of the horse began possibly more than 5000 years ago in the western part of the Eurasian steppe, and according to the leading hypothesis, horses first spread from the Steppe toward the region of the Thracian culture, starting in the second half of the 2nd millennium BCE and flourished from the fifth to first centuries BCE, mainly located in present-day Bulgaria. We analyzed 17 horse bone remains excavated from Thracian archaeological sites (fourth to first centuries BCE) in Bulgaria and successfully identified 17 sequences representing 14 different haplotypes of the mitocho...
Stallones L, McManus P, McGreevy P.As society debates the use of animals in sport, entertainment, and leisure, there is an increasing focus on the welfare, social, and ecological impacts of such activities on the animals, human participants, people close to them, and the physical environment. This article introduces the "Enhanced One Welfare Framework" to reveal significant costs and benefits associated with Thoroughbred breeding and racing globally. In addition, relative to calls to ban horseracing and similar activities as part of sustainability approaches that focus chiefly on animals, the "Enhanced One Welfare Framework" is...
Charnock LN, Davidson MG, Keys DA, Gilger BC, McMullen RJ.To evaluate the normal refractive state in horses in NCSU and ECMR and determine the prevalence of naturally occurring refractive errors and their association with breed, age, coat color, iris color, sex, and geographic location. Methods: Horses from NCSU (January 2009-November 2012) and ECMR (January 2013-September 2016) underwent ophthalmic examination and streak retinoscopy. Location, color, breed, sex, and iris color were recorded. Gross and net refractive values for each meridian (horizontal and vertical), spherical refraction, astigmatism for both eyes, and anisometry were recorded, and ...
Frontiers in geneticsJanuary 23, 2023
Volume 14 1099896 doi: 10.3389/fgene.2023.1099896
Capomaccio S, Ablondi M, Colombi D, Sartori C, Giontella A, Cappelli K, Mancin E, Asti V, Mantovani R, Sabbioni A, Silvestrelli M. The Italian peninsula is in the center of the Mediterranean area, and historically it has been a hub for numerous human populations, cultures, and also animal species that enriched the hosted biodiversity. Horses are no exception to this phenomenon, with the peculiarity that the gene pool has been impacted by warfare and subsequent "colonization". In this study, using a comprehensive dataset for almost the entire Italian equine population, in addition to the most influential cosmopolitan breeds, we describe the current status of the modern Italian gene pool. The Italian dataset comprised 1,3...
Mactaggart AG, Phillips CJC.We validated a Thoroughbred racehorse welfare index, developed initially from expert opinion, by relating it to horse behaviour recorded in a range of training stables and surveying trainers to investigate the environment and management systems for Thoroughbred racehorses. Relationships between the index scores and horse behaviour were observed. Then, an Australia-wide survey of racing industry stakeholders was conducted to identify which parameters are important for welfare in a training stable. Trainers performed well on horsemanship and health/disease aspects. Provisions for ventilation, tr...
Ross M, Proudfoot K, Merkies K, Elsohaby I, Mills M, Macmillan K, Mckenna S, Ritter C.Limited research has assessed the "human dimension" of horse care. The aims of this study were to (1) understand horse owner attitudes toward horse welfare when kept outdoors versus indoors and in groups versus individually, (2) compare horse owner attitudes toward horse welfare with the ways in which they house their horses, and (3) explore horse owner reasons for and challenges with their horses' housing. Seventy-six horse owners in Prince Edward Island, Canada completed a questionnaire. Non-parametric tests and quantitative content analysis were used for data analysis. Consistent with the w...
Brosnahan MM.Medical humanities is a multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary field of study that has experienced explosive growth in the United States since the 1960s. Two key components of medical humanities include first, the use of literature, poetry, and visual arts in the education of medical students, and second, the representation or examination of medical culture by scholars in the humanities, arts, and social sciences such as literary and film creators, sociologists, and anthropologists. The American Association of Medical Colleges recently reported that as of 2018, approximately 94% of medical schoo...
Smith S, Yohe LR, Solounias N.It has been recognized as early as the Victorian era that the apex of the distal phalanx has a distinct embryological development from the main shaft of the distal phalanx. Recent studies in regenerative medicine have placed an emphasis on the role of the apex of the distal phalanx in bone regrowth. Despite knowledge about the unique aspects of the distal phalanx, all phalanges are often treated as equivalent. Our morphological study reiterates and highlights the special anatomical and embryological properties of the apex of the distal phalanx, and names the apex "the bony cap" to distinguish ...
Kieson E, Goma AA, Radi M.Studies show that horses express favoritism through shared proximity and time and demonstrate unique affiliative behaviors such as allogrooming (mutual scratching) with favorite conspecifics. Allogrooming also occurs more frequently during stress and has been observed to occur more frequently in domestic herds than feral. The role of partner preference, lateralization, and duration of allogrooming as measures of social bonding has remained unclear. The present study looked at two socially stable herds of mares (n = 85, n = 115) to determine the frequency, duration, visual field of view and par...
Yildirim F, Yildiz A, Cengiz MM, Temel M, Küreksiz A.Horses in stalls generally remain in single-stall housing, so abnormal behavior can be observed in this management condition. Abnormal behavior can harm the horse's keeper, rider, or even the animal itself. The present study aims to examine the effect of goats on abnormal behaviors in horses. For this purpose, it placed six horses and six goats in the single-stall housing of the horses, one horse and one goat, and monitored them for 45 d. The research was divided into three observation phases during this time: in the first observation, the horses were left alone (0-15 d), in the second obs...
Suvá M, Arnold VH, Wiedenmann EA, Jordan R, Galvagno E, Martínez M, Vichera GD.Somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) is an asexual reproductive technique where cloned offspring contain the same genetic material as the original donor. Although this technique preserves the sex of the original animal, the birth of sex-reversed offspring has been reported in some species. Here, we report for the first time the birth of a female foal generated by SCNT of a male nuclear donor. After a single SCNT procedure, 16 blastocysts were obtained and transferred to eight recipient mares, resulting in the birth of two clones: one male and one female. Both animals had identical genetic prof...
Jones MM, Nuñez CMV.Stress responses can be triggered by several physical and social factors, prompting physiological reactions including increases in glucocorticoid concentrations. In a population of feral horses (Equus caballus) on Shackleford Banks, North Carolina, females previously immunized with the immunocontraceptive agent porcine zona pellucida (PZP) change social groups (bands) more often than unimmunized females, disrupting the social stability within the population. We assessed the effects of increased female group changing behavior (or female turnover) on individual male stress by comparing fecal cor...
Shilton CA, Kahler A, Roach JM, Raudsepp T, de Mestre AM.Embryonic and foetal loss remain one of the greatest challenges in equine reproductive health with 5-10% of established day 15 pregnancies and a further 5-10% of day 70 pregnancies failing to produce a viable foal. The underlying reason for these losses is variable but ultimately most cases will be attributed to pathologies of the environment of the developing embryo and later foetus, or a defect intrinsic to the embryo itself that leads to lethality at any stage of gestation right up to birth. Historically, much research has focused on the maternal endometrium, endocrine and immune responses ...
Bampidis V, Azimonti G, Bastos ML, Christensen H, Fašmon Durjava M, Kouba M, López-Alonso M, López Puente S, Marcon F, Mayo B, Pechová A....Following a request from the European Commission, EFSA Panel on Additives and Products or Substances used in Animal Feed (FEEDAP) was asked to deliver a scientific opinion on the safety and efficacy of a tincture derived from the fruit of (Mill.) Fuss (parsley tincture) when used as a sensory feed additive for all animal species. The product is a ■■■■■ solution, with a dry matter content of approximately 0.82%. The product contained 0.0198% polyphenols (of which 0.0085% were flavonoids), apiole (0.0083%), elemicin (0.0015%) and myristicin (0.0011%). The Panel on Additives and Prod...
Kimura R, Borankulova S, Maratbek SZ.This study aimed to evaluate the effect of differences in trainer skills on horse training during the early stages of riding habituation by measuring the levels of stress and changes in stress levels. Among nine untrained horses employed, five in Group A were trained by two low-skilled trainers, whereas the remaining four in Group B were trained by two high-skilled trainers using the traditional Kazakh method. Salivary α-amylase concentration was measured as a biomarker of stress immediately before and after each riding session during the training period. In the duration of riding and mooring...
Felici M, Cogger N, Riley CB, Padalino B.There is a lack of information on the number of horses shipped globally by air annually, the purpose of air travel and the routes of their journeys. This pilot study aimed to collect retrospective data on the international movements of horses by air from 2018 to 2021, describe their routes, and identify the possible effects of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic. Equine transport data was gathered from 7 of 15 international shipping companies (ISCs) and 5 of 8 airlines contacted by email. The seven ISCs performed a median of 10,401 horse movements annually, ranging from a few hundre...
Pratt-Phillips S, Munjizun A, Janicki K.Obesity is a critical problem in the equine industry, with ponies being at particularly high risk of developing obesity-related conditions such as metabolic syndrome and laminitis. The purpose of this study was to estimate the level of adiposity in an elite level of competitive show ponies, and to determine if adiposity was related to performance based on their model score (judged on conformation and appearance). Two researchers visually evaluated the body condition score (BCS) and cresty neck score (CNS) of 377 ponies at a national hunter competition. Thirty five percent of the ponies in the ...
Liu L, Zhang Y, Ma H, Cao H, Liu W.Horse Milk has important quantitative characteristics and high economic value. However, the DNA methylation regulators involved in horse milk traits have not been clarified. To explore the important role of genome-wide DNA methylation in regulating equine milk yield, this study systematically investigated the genome-wide DNA methylation profiles of Kazakh horse blood by comparing a high-production group (HP, average daily milk yield of 7.5 kg) and low-production group (LP, average daily milk yield of 3.2 kg) using deep whole-genome bisulfite sequencing. First, both groups showed similar prop...
Ginther OJ.The mechanism for selection of the future dominant or ovulatory follicle in mares involves a relatively abrupt separation in growth rates between the future dominant follicle and several subordinate follicles and is termed diameter deviation. The event is used to illustrate that a coordinated complex of many follicular, hormonal, and biochemical factors interact and interbalance during a single physiological mechanism. For example, a positive effect of follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) on development of all follicles during the growing phase can later involve a positive effect of luteinizing ...
Seck M, Jobling R, Brown AF.Bits used for cart horses in Senegal are typically made of recovered construction iron and often have defects related to design, shape, fit and metal quality. Consequently, there is widespread presence of bit-related oral injury amongst these equids. It was hypothesised that improving bit design would ameliorate bit-related welfare issues for working cart horses. This study aimed to develop locally made alternative bit prototypes and test their efficacy as less harmful to working horses, and their acceptability to their drivers. Eight animal-based welfare indicators (four physical and four beh...
Proudman CJ, Hunter JO, Darby AC, Escalona EE, Batty C, Turner C.The intestinal bacterial community of the horse is a key determinant of intestinal and whole body health. Understanding the bacterial community structure and function is an important foundation for studies of intestinal health and disease. Objective: To describe the faecal bacterial community and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) of the faecal metabolome of healthy Thoroughbred racehorses and to characterise responses to dietary supplementation with amylase-rich malt extract. Methods: Intervention study. Methods: Faecal samples were collected noninvasively before and 6 weeks after supplementat...
Verheij HM, Volwerk JJ, Jansen EH, Puyk WC, Dijkstra BW, Drenth J, de Haas GH.It is known that His-48 is part of the active center in pancreatic phospholipase. To further elucidate the role of histidine-48 in the active center of pancreatic phospholipase A2, we have modified the enzyme with a number of bromo ketones and methyl benzenesulfonates. Rapid methylation occurred with methyl p-nitrobenzenesulfonate. Methylated phospholipase shows total loss of enzymatic activity whereas binding of substrate and the cofactor Ca2+ remains intact. Amino acid analysis of methylated equine phospholipase showed the loss of the single molecule of histidine and the formation of one mol...
Austin NP, Rogers LJ.We investigated whether horses display greater reactivity to a novel stimulus presented in the left compared to the right monocular visual field, and whether a population bias exists for escape turning when the same stimulus was presented binocularly. Domestic horses (N=30) were tested on three occasions by a person opening an umbrella five metres away and then approaching. The distance each horse moved away before stopping was measured. Distance was greatest for approach on the left side, indicating right hemisphere control of flight behaviour, and thus followed the same pattern found previou...
Fureix C, Jego P, Sankey C, Hausberger M.This study aimed to determine whether horses have a kind of memory of humans (based on previous interactions), leading to a general significance of humans revealed by their reactions to humans in subsequent interactions. Subjects were 59 adult horses used to interact daily with humans. Three types of behavioural tests involving an unknown experimenter evaluated three possibly different memorized types of human-animal interactions (not work-related, using work-related objects, unfamiliar working task). We also performed standardized observations of routine interactions between each horse and it...
Keeling LJ, Jonare L, Lanneborn L.The heart rates (HR) of horses and the people leading them (10 horses, 20 people), and riding them (17 horses, 17 people), were recorded in an indoor arena. The horses were Swedish leisure horses of mixed ages, sex and breed. All except two of the people were female and all were of mixed age and riding experience. Each horse-human pair walked or rode between points A and B (30m) four times on each test occasion. However, just before the fourth pass, participants were told that an umbrella would be opened as they rode, or led, the horse past the assistant. The umbrella was not opened, so this p...
Evangelista MC, Monteiro BP, Steagall PV.Facial expressions of pain have been identified in several animal species. The aim of this systematic review was to provide evidence on the measurement properties of grimace scales for pain assessment. The protocol was registered (SyRF#21-November-2019), and the study is reported according to the PRISMA guidelines. Studies reporting the development, validation, and the assessment of measurement properties of grimace scales were included. Data extraction and assessment were performed by 2 investigators, following the COnsensus-based Standards for the Selection of Health Measurement INstruments ...
Farmer K, Krueger K, Byrne RW.Most horses have a side on which they are easier to handle and a direction they favour when working on a circle, and recent studies have suggested a correlation between emotion and visual laterality when horses observe inanimate objects. As such lateralisation could provide important clues regarding the horse's cognitive processes, we investigated whether horses also show laterality in association with people. We gave horses the choice of entering a chute to left or right, with and without the passive, non-interactive presence of a person unknown to them. The left eye was preferred for scannin...
Ablondi M, Viklund Å, Lindgren G, Eriksson S, Mikko S.A growing demand for improved physical skills and mental attitude in modern sport horses has led to strong selection for performance in many warmblood studbooks. The aim of this study was to detect genomic regions with low diversity, and therefore potentially under selection, in Swedish Warmblood horses (SWB) by analysing high-density SNP data. To investigate if such signatures could be the result of selection for equestrian sport performance, we compared our SWB SNP data with those from Exmoor ponies, a horse breed not selected for sport performance traits. Results: The genomic scan for homoz...
Smith AV, Proops L, Grounds K, Wathan J, Scott SK, McComb K.The ability to discriminate between emotion in vocal signals is highly adaptive in social species. It may also be adaptive for domestic species to distinguish such signals in humans. Here we present a playback study investigating whether horses spontaneously respond in a functionally relevant way towards positive and negative emotion in human nonverbal vocalisations. We presented horses with positively- and negatively-valenced human vocalisations (laughter and growling, respectively) in the absence of all other emotional cues. Horses were found to adopt a freeze posture for significantly longe...
McGreevy PD.The lengthy association of humans with horses has established traditional equestrian techniques that have served military and transport needs well. Although effective, these techniques have by-passed the research findings of modern psychologists, who developed the fundamentals of learning theory. That said, the pools of equestrian debate are far from stagnant. The latest wave of horse whisperers has offered some refinements and some novel interpretations of the motivation of horses undergoing training. Additionally, the Fédération Equestre Internationale (FEI) has introduced the concept of t...
Hill EW, Bradley DG, Al-Barody M, Ertugrul O, Splan RK, Zakharov I, Cunningham EP.Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) D-loop sequences (381 bp) from 100 thoroughbreds in 19 of the most common matrilineal female families were used to reconstruct a founder female population for the thoroughbred ( approximately 1650-1750 AD). Seventeen haplotypes were found to have contributed to the 19 female lineages. In order to place the reconstructed founder population in wider historical context, we examined, using both single strand conformation polymorphism and direct sequence analysis, variation in a 343 bp mtDNA fragment in that population and 13 other horse populations of disparate provenance...
Harvey AM, Beausoleil NJ, Ramp D, Mellor DJ.Knowledge of the welfare status of wild animals is vital for informing debates about the ways in which we interact with wild animals and their habitats. Currently, there is no published information about how to scientifically assess the welfare of free-roaming wild animals during their normal day-to-day lives. Using free-roaming horses as an example, we describe a ten-stage protocol for systematically and scientifically assessing the welfare of individual non-captive wild animals. The protocol starts by emphasising the importance of readers having an understanding of animal welfare in a conser...
Price J, Catriona S, Welsh EM, Waran NK.To develop a method for objective assessment of equine post-operative pain. Methods: Prospective nonblinded clinical study. Methods: Twelve adult horses: Group 1 (G1, n = 6), admitted for arthroscopy (under general anaesthesia, with multimodal analgesia); Group 2 (G2, n = 6), 'pain free' controls. Methods: Horses were filmed continuously (CVI, time-lapse video recorder) over 72 hours, from 24 hours pre-surgery (PS) to 48 hours post-recovery (PR) (G1), and over 24 hours (G2). Activity budgets were determined from 24 to 0 hours PS, 0-24 and 24-48 hours PR (G1) and for 24 hours (G2). Using direct...
Brooks SA, Bailey E.Sabino (SB) is a white spotting pattern in the horse characterized by white patches on the face, lower legs, or belly, and interspersed white hairs on the midsection. Based on comparable phenotypes in humans and pigs, the KIT gene was investigated as the origin of the Sabino phenotype. In this article we report the genetic basis of one type of Sabino spotting pattern in horses that we call Sabino 1, with the alleles represented by the symbols SB1 and sb1. Transcripts of KIT were characterized by reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and sequencing cDNA from horses with the g...
Bartolomé E, Sánchez MJ, Molina A, Schaefer AL, Cervantes I, Valera M.The aims of this study were, first, to evaluate eye temperature (ET) with infrared thermography and heart rate (HR) to measure stress in horses during show jumping competitions and their relationship with competition results, and second, to evaluate the influence of different extrinsic and intrinsic factors of the horse on the stress measurements analysed. One hundred and seventy-three Spanish Sport Horses were analysed for ET and HR, and these measurements were taken 3 h before the competition, just after and 3 h after it. Two interval measurements were also assessed for each parameter. Posit...
Votion DM, Gnaiger E, Lemieux H, Mouithys-Mickalad A, Serteyn D.Within the animal kingdom, horses are among the most powerful aerobic athletic mammals. Determination of muscle respiratory capacity and control improves our knowledge of mitochondrial physiology in horses and high aerobic performance in general. Results: We applied high-resolution respirometry and multiple substrate-uncoupler-inhibitor titration protocols to study mitochondrial physiology in small (1.0-2.5 mg) permeabilized muscle fibres sampled from triceps brachii of healthy horses. Oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) capacity (pmol O(2) • s(-1) • mg(-1) wet weight) with combined Complex...
Wong DM, Ruby RE, Dembek KA, Barr BS, Reuss SM, Magdesian KG, Olsen E, Burns T, Slovis NM, Wilkins PA.The original equine sepsis score provided a method of identifying foals with sepsis. New variables associated with sepsis have been evaluated, but the sepsis score has not been updated. Objective: To evaluate the sensitivity and specificity of 2 updated sepsis scores and the systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) criteria in regard to detecting sepsis in foals. Methods: Two-hundred and seventy-three ill foals and 25 healthy control foals. Methods: Historical, physical examination, and clinicopathologic findings were used to calculate the original sepsis score and 2 updated sepsis score...
Librado P, Fages A, Gaunitz C, Leonardi M, Wagner S, Khan N, Hanghøj K, Alquraishi SA, Alfarhan AH, Al-Rasheid KA, Der Sarkissian C, Schubert M....The horse was domesticated only 5.5 KYA, thousands of years after dogs, cattle, pigs, sheep, and goats. The horse nonetheless represents the domestic animal that most impacted human history; providing us with rapid transportation, which has considerably changed the speed and magnitude of the circulation of goods and people, as well as their cultures and diseases. By revolutionizing warfare and agriculture, horses also deeply influenced the politico-economic trajectory of human societies. Reciprocally, human activities have circled back on the recent evolution of the horse, by creating hundreds...
Krueger K, Flauger B, Farmer K, Maros K.This study evaluates the horse (Equus caballus) use of human local enhancement cues and reaction to human attention when making feeding decisions. The superior performance of dogs in observing human states of attention suggests this ability evolved with domestication. However, some species show an improved ability to read human cues through socialization and training. We observed 60 horses approach a bucket with feed in a three-way object-choice task when confronted with (a) an unfamiliar or (b) a familiar person in 4 different situations: (1) squatting behind the bucket, facing the horse (2) ...
Wolff A, Hausberger M, Le Scolan N.Different tests were used to assess different aspects of the emotionality of 1-3 year-old horses: arena test; a `novel object' test; and a handling test. In reaction to the test situations no important differences were observed according to age or sex in the behaviour patterns, but clear individual differences were observed within these classes. The arena test seemed to reveal the degree of gregariousness of the animals whereas the results in the two other tests were correlated and seemed to reflect an inherent degree of fearfulness in the horse. Indices were developed that enabled to rank the...
Yarnell K, Hall C, Billett E.Animal management often involves procedures that, while unlikely to cause physical pain, still cause aversive responses. The domestic horse (Equus caballus) regularly has excessive hair clipped off to facilitate its use as a riding/driving animal and this procedure causes adverse behavioral responses in some animals. The aim of this study was to compare behavioral and physiological measures to assess the aversive effect of this procedure. Ten horses were selected on the basis of being either compliant (C: n=5) or non-compliant (NC: n=5) during this procedure. The horses were subjected to a sha...
Bachmann I, Audigé L, Staﾬher M.Studies on the prevalence of behavioural disorders in horses and on associated risk factors have revealed inconsistent results. There are many studies on the neuropharmacological, surgical or mechanical therapy of stereotypies, but little is known about their causation. Objective: To explore risk factors associated with the occurrence of behavioural disorders in horses. Methods: A sample of horse owners, selected randomly and representative for Switzerland, was contacted in a postal survey. Answers were provided for 622 stables (response rate 35.2%). Individual data of 2,341 horses were examin...
Basile M, Boivin S, Boutin A, Blois-Heulin C, Hausberger M, Lemasson A.Laterality is now known to be an ubiquitous phenomenon among the vertebrates. Particularly, laterality of auditory processing has been demonstrated in a variety of species, especially songbirds and primates. Such a hemispheric specialization has been shown to depend on factors such as sound structure, species specificity and types of stimuli. Much less is known on the possible influence of social familiarity although a few studies suggest such an influence. Here we tested the influence of the degree of familiarity on the laterality of the auditory response in the domestic horse. This species i...
Payne RC, Veenman P, Wilson AM.Muscles have two major roles in locomotion: to generate force and to absorb/generate power (do work). Economical force generation is achieved by short-fibred pennate muscle while the maximum power output of a muscle is architecture independent. In this study we tested the hypothesis that there is an anatomical and structural separation between the force-generating anti-gravity muscles and the propulsive (limb/trunk moving) muscles of the equine forelimb. Muscle mass and fascicle length measurements were made on the thoracic limb extrinsic muscles of six fresh horse cadavers. Physiological cros...
Felkel S, Vogl C, Rigler D, Dobretsberger V, Chowdhary BP, Distl O, Fries R, Jagannathan V, Janečka JE, Leeb T, Lindgren G, McCue M, Metzger J....Analysis of the Y chromosome is the best-established way to reconstruct paternal family history in humans. Here, we applied fine-scaled Y-chromosomal haplotyping in horses with biallelic markers and demonstrate the potential of our approach to address the ancestry of sire lines. We de novo assembled a draft reference of the male-specific region of the Y chromosome from Illumina short reads and then screened 5.8 million basepairs for variants in 130 specimens from intensively selected and rural breeds and nine Przewalski's horses. Among domestic horses we confirmed the predominance of a young'c...
Nakamura K, Takimoto-Inose A, Hasegawa T.Humans have domesticated many kinds of animals in their history. Dogs and horses have particularly close relationships with humans as cooperative partners. However, fewer scientific studies have been conducted on cognition in horses compared to dogs. Studies have shown that horses cross-modally distinguish human facial expressions and recognize familiar people, which suggests that they also cross-modally distinguish human emotions. In the present study, we used the expectancy violation method to investigate whether horses cross-modally perceive human emotions. Horses were shown a picture of a ...
Geburek F, Roggel F, van Schie HTM, Beineke A, Estrada R, Weber K, Hellige M, Rohn K, Jagodzinski M, Welke B, Hurschler C, Conrad S, Skutella T....Adipose tissue is a promising source of mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) for the treatment of tendon disease. The goal of this study was to assess the effect of a single intralesional implantation of adipose tissue-derived mesenchymal stromal cells (AT-MSCs) on artificial lesions in equine superficial digital flexor tendons (SDFTs). During this randomized, controlled, blinded experimental study, either autologous cultured AT-MSCs suspended in autologous inactivated serum (AT-MSC-serum) or autologous inactivated serum (serum) were injected intralesionally 2 weeks after surgical creation of cen...
Ander M, Meiswinkel R, Chirico J.The outbreak of bluetongue (BT) in northern Europe 2006 initiated the monitoring of vectors, biting midges of the genus Culicoides in Sweden. In order to determine the diversity, distribution and seasonal dynamics of Culicoides, weekly collections were made during 2008 and during March-December 2009 using the Ondestepoort Veterinary Institute black light trap. Twenty sampling sites were selected in 12 provinces. In total of 30,704 Culicoides were collected in 2008 and 32,252 in 2009. The most abundant species were the potential vectors of BTV Culicoides obsoletus/C. scoticus that comprised of ...
Frontiers in zoologyFebruary 11, 2017
Volume 14 8 doi: 10.1186/s12983-017-0193-1
Briefer EF, Mandel R, Maigrot AL, Briefer Freymond S, Bachmann I, Hillmann E.Non-human animals often produce different types of vocalisations in negative and positive contexts (i.e. different valence), similar to humans, in which crying is associated with negative emotions and laughter is associated with positive ones. However, some types of vocalisations (e.g. contact calls, human speech) can be produced in both negative and positive contexts, and changes in valence are only accompanied by slight structural differences. Although such acoustically graded signals associated with opposite valence have been highlighted in some species, it is not known if conspecifics disc...
Bowling AT, Del Valle A, Bowling M.Through DNA sequence comparisons of a mitochondrial D-loop hypervariable region, we investigated matrilineal diversity for Arabian horses in the United States. Sixty-two horses were tested. From published pedigrees they traced in the maternal line to 34 mares acquired primarily in the mid to late 19th century from nomadic Bedouin tribes. Compared with the reference sequence (GenBank X79547), these samples showed 27 haplotypes with altogether 31 base substitution sites within 397 bp of sequence. Based on examination of pedigrees from a random sampling of 200 horses in current studbooks of the A...
