‘Pain-free horses don’t react like that’: film aims to help riders hear what their horses are saying
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The creators of a new documentary on the ridden horse pain ethogram (RHpE) hope it will improve horse welfare and performance, as well as horse sport’s future.
The RHpE comprises 24 behaviours including tail-swishing and an open mouth, the presence of eight or more of which may indicate that the horse has musculoskeletal pain, even if it is not overtly lame. Sue Dyson, former head of clinical orthopaedics at the Animal Health Trust, developed the ethogram through research including assessing lame and non-lame horses.
The video follows the story of showjumper Galina, owned by Lauren McMahon, who had started refusing jumps and becoming less willing to work on the flat, but was not overtly lame. Dr Dyson, with Gold Coast Equine vet Jim Myers, examine the mare, apply the ethogram; their findings shown on the footage, and diagnose the issue.
Dr Dyson said the aim is to “raise more awareness that so many of these behaviours that people accept as normal for horses are not normal; they’re a clue that something’s wrong,” she said. “And to encourage early investigation of problems rather than letting them linger, then when they are investigated, they’re more of a challenge.”
“Pain-free horses don’t react like that,” she said. “I hear time and again trainers saying ‘Kick harder’, or ‘Go to the gym and build your core strength’, ‘make your horse take an even contact’, but they’re all the ways horses try to communicate with us, and we need to listen.”
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Behaviour assessment tool enables all onlookers to assess pain in horses
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