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Topic:Equine Studies
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.
An admissions system to select veterinary medical students with an interest in food animals and veterinary public health. Interest in the areas of food animals (FA) and veterinary public health (VPH) appears to be declining among prospective students of veterinary medicine. To address the expected shortage of veterinarians in these areas, the Utrecht Faculty of Veterinary Medicine has developed an admissions procedure to select undergraduates whose aptitude and interests are suited to these areas. A study using expert meetings, open interviews, and document analysis identified personal characteristics that distinguished veterinarians working in the areas of FA and VPH from their colleagues who specialized in comp...
Motion pattern analysis of gait in horseback riding by means of Principal Component Analysis. As a consequence of the three interacting systems of horse, saddle, and rider, horseback riding is a very complex movement that is difficult to characterize by a limited number of biomechanical parameters or characteristic curves. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is a technique for reducing multidimensional datasets to a minimal (i.e., optimally economic) set of dimensions. To apply PCA to horseback riding data, a "pattern vector" composed of the horizontal velocities of a set of body markers was determined. PCA was used to identify the major dynamic constituents of the three natural gaits o...
Combining microsatellite and pedigree data to estimate relationships among Skyros ponies. Relationship coefficients are particularly useful to improve genetic management of endangered populations. These coefficients are traditionally based on pedigree data, but in case of incomplete or inexistent pedigrees they are replaced by coefficients calculated from molecular data. The main objective of this study was to develop a new method to estimate relationship coefficients by combining molecular with pedigree data, which is useful for specific situations where neither pedigree nor molecular data are complete. The developed method was applied to contribute to the conservation of the Skyr...
Heritability of foot conformation and its relationship to sports performance in a Dutch Warmblood horse population. Warmblood horse studbooks aim to breed horses with a conformation that will enable elite future performance, but reduce the risk of injuries and lameness. Negative conformational traits, such as asymmetrical or 'uneven' forefeet would possibly diminish performance. Objective: To assess the prevalence and heritability of uneven feet and its genetic relationship to other conformation traits as well as to sporting performance later in life in Warmblood riding horses. Methods: The databases of the Royal Dutch Warmblood Studbook (KWPN, n = 44,840 horses) and Royal Dutch Equestrian Sports Federation...
Oral acetate supplementation after prolonged moderate intensity exercise enhances early muscle glycogen resynthesis in horses. Oral acetate supplementation enhances glycogen synthesis in some mammals. However, while acetate is a significant energy source for skeletal muscle at rest in horses, its effects on glycogen resynthesis are unknown. We hypothesized that administration of an oral sodium acetate-acetic acid solution with a typical grain and hay meal after glycogen-depleting exercise would result in a rapid appearance of acetate in blood with rapid uptake by skeletal muscle. It was further hypothesized that acetate taken up by muscle would be converted to acetyl CoA (and acetylcarnitine), which would be metaboliz...
Relationships between early foal health, future performance and their dams reproductive health. The objectives of this study were to investigate: (i) relationships between early foal health and their dams' reproductive health at mating/conception as well as after parturition and (ii) health status during early foal life and its association with performance as an adult. The study included 35 foals showing clinical symptoms indicating septicaemia, sometimes in combination with other disturbances, within their first 18 h postpartum (Group I). Eighty-eight foals that were healthy during their first few days of life were used as control (Group II). All foals were born in the same region of Sw...
Factors influencing conception rates of Arab mares in Tunisia. In order to investigate the factors affecting the reproduction efficiency of Arab breeding mares in Tunisia, breeding data corresponding to 2340 mated cycles, over 5 years (from 2000 to 2004), from 555 mares offspring of 50 sires and bred with 17 stallions were analysed using a multivariate logistic regression. We chose logit link function and binomial distribution and we used log-likelihood-ratio (LL) and Wald tests (X(2)Wald) to test the mean values. The factors of variation included in the model were the year, the stallion, the age of the mare at mating, the sire and the category of the mar...
Coat color variation at the beginning of horse domestication. The transformation of wild animals into domestic ones available for human nutrition was a key prerequisite for modern human societies. However, no other domestic species has had such a substantial impact on the warfare, transportation, and communication capabilities of human societies as the horse. Here, we show that the analysis of ancient DNA targeting nuclear genes responsible for coat coloration allows us to shed light on the timing and place of horse domestication. We conclude that it is unlikely that horse domestication substantially predates the occurrence of coat color variation, which...
How equitation science can elucidate and refine horsemanship techniques. The long-held belief that human dominance and equine submission are key to successful training and that the horse must be taught to 'respect' the trainer infers that force is often used during training. Many horses respond by trialling unwelcome evasions, resistances and flight responses, which readily become established. When unable to cope with problem behaviours, some handlers in the past might have been encouraged to use harsh methods or devices while others may have called in a so-called 'good horseman' or 'horse whisperer' to remediate the horse. Frequently, the approaches such practitio...
Investigating horse-human interactions: the effect of a nervous human. 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...
Daily pattern of some fatty acids in the athletic horse. In the sport field, non-esterified fatty acids (NEFA) are important for the physical performance during the aerobic exercise of short intensity and long duration. In man, rat, goat and in the sedentary horse studies on the chronometabolism showed the presence of a circadian rhythm of the plasmatic concentration of NEFA while data for the athletic horse are lacking. To define a chronogram helpful for a specific planning and the differentiation of the training programmme in the athletic horse, the circadian pattern of some fatty acids (NEFA, palmitic, stearic, oleic, linoleic and linolenic acids...
The heart and its valves in Caspian miniature horse: a topographic study. The Caspian miniature horse is one of the rare small breeds in the north of Iran. In the present study, the position of the heart and its valves were determined topographically in 4 miniature horses. We found that Caspian miniature horses have general similarities, with certain topographical variability, with other horses.
Stimulus discrimination by horses under scotopic conditions. Scotopic vision in horses (Equus caballus) was investigated using behavioral measurements for the first time. Four horses were tested for the ability to make simple visual discriminations of geometric figures (circles and triangles) under various brightness levels within an enclosed building. Measurements of brightness ranging from 10.37 to 24.12 magnitudes per square arcsecond (mag/arcsec(2); in candelas per square meter-7.70 to 2.43E-05cd/m(2)) were taken using a Sky Quality Meter. These values approximated outdoor conditions ranging from twilight in open country to a dark moonless night in ...
How horses (Equus caballus) see the world: humans as significant “objects”. 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...
Weighted boots influence performance in show-jumping horses. This study investigated the effects of weighted boots on horses (n=6) jumping a 1.25 m oxer fence. The horses had similar training experience and were assigned to two groups of three subjects (groups G1 and G2). All horses performed 10 jumping efforts: G1 horses made attempts 1-5 without boots and 6-10 with boots; G2 made attempts 1-5 with boots and 6-10 without boots. Data were available via sagittal plane S-VHS recordings and t test analyses focussed on limb-placement dimensions. There were no differences among performances of the horses in the horizontal plane, but there were significant di...
Effects on behaviour and rein tension on horses ridden with or without martingales and rein inserts. Unsteady hand position can cause discomfort to the horse, potentially leading to conflict behaviours (CB) such as head tossing or tail lashing. Some instructors feel that martingales or elastic rein inserts can reduce discomfort caused by inexperienced and unsteady hands. Others consider these devices to be inappropriate 'crutches'. Four horses and nine riders were tested under three conditions in random order: plain reins, adjustable training martingales (TM), and elasticised rein inserts (RI). Rein-tension data (7s) and behavioural data (30s) were collected in each direction. Rein-tension da...
The horse-human dyad: can we align horse training and handling activities with the equid social ethogram? This article examines the recently completed equid ethogram and shows how analogues of social interactions between horses may occur in various human-horse interactions. It discusses how some specific horse-horse interactions have a corresponding horse-human interaction - some of which may be directly beneficial for the horse while others may be unusual or even abnormal. It also shows how correspondent behaviours sometimes become inappropriate because of their duration, consistency or context. One analogue is unlikely to hold true for all horse-human contexts, so when applying any model from ho...
SMART: Sensitivity models for animals in response to training. Trained responses are said to be under stimulus control when they appear reliably and exclusively on cue. The SMART system is a conceptual, three-dimensional graphic that uses four quadrants to chart a horse's responsiveness to various cues from two reins and the trainer's legs and seat. The current plots have been designed for ridden horses. The models assume that the trainer's cues are bilaterally equivalent, unless the intention is to signal a turn or a lateral movement. The extent to which 'go' signals manifest as straight, forward locomotion reflect the bilateral balance of the horse's re...
Breeding value estimation in the Hungarian Sport Horse population. The aims of this study were to estimate phenotypic and genetic parameters for a range of traits in Hungarian Sport Horses, and to compare several methods of estimating breeding value (BV) in this breed. The analyses were based on the Hungarian Sport Horse Studbook, results of self-performance tests (SPTs) and show-jumping competition results. An SPT comprises subjective judgement of conformation traits, movement analysis traits and free-jumping performance, assessed via ordinal scores. Genetic parameters of SPTs were estimated with an animal model. Different measurements of the competition per...
A comparison of sympathetic and conventional training methods on responses to initial horse training. In 'sympathetic horsemanship' the importance of the natural behaviour of the horse and the use of body language in communication is emphasised. However, it is unclear what effect sympathetic horsemanship has on the welfare of horses. During a 5-week starting period the effect of a sympathetic (ST) versus a conventional (CT) training method was studied using 28 young Warmblood horses. Behavioural observations during the starting period as well as during a standardised final riding test were performed by trained observers. A Wilcoxon matched-pair test was used to detect differences within groups...
Sire x stud interaction for body measurement traits in Spanish Purebred horses. The mating policy for Spanish Purebred horses encourages the same or closely related stallions to be used for reproduction across studs differing in environments. Stallions may perform differently across studs, and if so, adjustment for the sire x stud (ss) interaction is recommended. However, there are no studies available that analyzed the influence of ss interaction on estimation of genetic parameters in horses. This research is aimed at assessing the implications of including ss interaction in models fitted for the estimation of genetic parameters for traits under selection using 8 body me...
Control of equine influenza: scenario testing using a realistic metapopulation model of spread. We present a metapopulation model of the spread of equine influenza among thoroughbred horses parametrized with data from a 2003 outbreak in Newmarket, UK. The number of horses initially susceptible is derived from a threshold theorem and a published statistical model. Two simulated likelihood-based methods are used to find the within- and between-yard transmissions using both exponential and empirical latent and infectious periods. We demonstrate that the 2003 outbreak was largely locally driven and use the parametrized model to address important questions of control. The chance of a large ep...
Role of diet and feeding in normal and stereotypic behaviors in horses. This article reviews the effects of diet on equine feeding behavior and feeding patterns, before considering the evidence that diet affects reactivity in horses. A growing body of work suggests that fat- and fiber-based diets may result in calmer patterns of behavior, and possible mechanisms that may underpin these effects are discussed. In contrast, there is little evidence that herbal- or tryptophan-containing supplements influence equine behavior in any measurable way. The role of diet in the development of abnormal oral behaviors, particularly the oral stereotypy crib-biting, is also revie...
Adult-young ratio, a major factor regulating social behaviour of young: a horse study. Adults play an important role in regulating the social behaviour of young individuals. However, a few pioneer studies suggest that, more than the mere presence of adults, their proportions in social groups affect the social development of young. Here, we hypothesized that aggression rates and social cohesion were correlated to adult-young ratios. Our biological model was naturally-formed groups of Przewalski horses, Equus f. przewalskii, varying in composition. Results: We investigated the social interactions and spatial relationships of 12 one- and two-year-old Przewalski horses belonging to ...
Socially dependent auditory laterality in domestic horses (Equus caballus). 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...
