Connection Training: The Heart and Science of Positive Horse Training

By Hannah Weston, Rachel Bedingfield and Loni Loftus

Connection Training's approach creates the best experience for the horse, based on the science of learning and equine emotions. We focus on building positive emotions around you and the training, such as relaxation, confidence and willingness. These emotions create safe, happy horses who are a joy to train, ride and handle.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Connection Training Ltd
• Release date: Nov 9, 2019
• ISBN: 9781916210127

Book preview

Introduction

What is Connection Training?

Why have you picked up this book? Are you looking for a gentle way to work with your horse, and build your relationship together? Do you have a difficult problem with your horse and are looking for techniques that might help? Maybe you feel there’s a better way to help you and your progress in a way that you both enjoy. Perhaps you are a first-time horse owner, or parent of one, and are learning everything you can. Whatever your reason for reading this book, our reason for writing it is to help you. We want to help you to train your horse in a way that is rewarding for both of you and which creates an amazing partnership between you.

Our mission is to teach you how to train your horse to become a happy all-rounder, who is your equine partner. Our focus is threefold:

to teach you a proven, effective way for you to train your horse for all your needs;

to promote healthy postural engagement so that your horse can be sound for a long life;

to foster confidence and joy in both you and your horse.

These will give you everything you need for a desirable leisure horse. From trail rides to dressage rings; from playing over obstacles to joining the Riding Club jumping class, you will have a horse who is happy and relaxed. If you want to go further into a particular discipline, you will have a solid foundation to take into more focused training, while also knowing how to keep your horse sound and happy for life.

Why Good Training Is Vital

Effective training is one of the cornerstones of good animal welfare. It is just as important as providing the correct environment, companions, healthcare, and nutrition. A lack of effective training can cause difficulty in care routines, such as hoof trimming and veterinary visits., making daily handling stressful for both you and your horse. It also limits the activities you can enjoy together.

You’ve probably seen that, although people have horses for leisure and relaxation, many owners struggle with anxiety, frustration and tension when dealing with their horse. Positive and effective training makes these daily interactions easy and safe and works with all horses, whether young, old, green or problematic. Whatever kind of horse you start with, our aim is for you to have a horse who:

Is easy and safe to handle.

Is fun to spend time with.

Moves correctly for good health and physical well-being.

Enjoys whatever tasks you want to focus on.

Lives a happy, healthy, enriched life.

To accomplish this, we use reward-based training, underpinned by equine ethology and the science of emotions. This approach has been shown scientifically to be the most effective and fair way to train animals. Through years of hands-on experience with horses, we have established how to use it most effectively to get the best results, the happiest horse, and the strongest partnership.

Connection Training is based on 3 elements:

1) Making training rewarding, which encourages and enthuses your horse;

2) Clear communication, which relaxes your horse and creates confidence; and

3) Fostering a close bond between you and your horse.

What This Book Will Teach You

We begin by looking at what it means to be a horse and how your horse learns. Then you’ll discover how to use the Connection Training principles and techniques to address any training situation you encounter. Our principles and philosophies in the book are fully supported by our full training programme which you can follow online.

Throughout our work, the emotions of your horse and your relationship together will be prioritised and strengthened. Good horse training takes time, so you won’t find quick fixes through our approach. But you will find deep and permanent fixes. The journey itself is fascinating and rewarding as you feel the deepening bond between you and your horse.

Our strongest goal is to teach you to be empowered as an independent trainer. Once you understand the scientific principles behind the training and have learnt good practices, you will be able to train any horse, anywhere, to do anything they have the capability to do. Learning Connection Training will give you all the skills and confidence you need.

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Connection.

Who Are We?

Connection Training is a collaboration between Rachel Bedingfield and Hannah Weston, a mother and daughter team. We are experienced horse trainers who live and work in the UK and Spain. We have created the Connection Training Club, which is an online Membership Site, where students from all over the world learn to train their horses using our video courses. We have a global team of Certified Coaches and focus on providing individual support to Members so that their training is successful and fun.

Hannah Weston

Hannah Weston

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My love of horses shone through at an early age. I started riding at age three, then spent my childhood hanging out at the stables. I got my first pony, Toby, when I was ten and loved competing in show- jumping and eventing with him.

During my teens, I began to explore alternative horsemanship, along with traditional British riding. In 2004, I discovered reward-based training and noticed that my horses learned new behaviours quickly and their levels of joy and motivation were much higher than ever before. This led me to study reward-based training in depth and train everything in this way, both on the ground and in the saddle.

I developed a strong interest in creating sound, healthy movement in horses, mainly as I struggled to keep Toby sound. I qualified as an equine bodyworker using the Equine Touch technique, studied rider posture and alignment, and learned about classical dressage exercises for straightening and strengthening horses.

My greatest joy comes from the creativity of bringing together skills and knowledge from different areas into fun and practical exercises to create healthy, happy horses.

As well as training my own horses, I teach in the UK and abroad, working with horse owners and rescue centres. I launched my first online training site, Clix College, in 2010, teaching members from around the world. This evolved into Connection Training in 2014.

Rachel Bedingfield

Rachel Bedingfield

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At the age of forty, I became a ‘born-again’ horsewoman, led back to horses through Hannah. I became passionate about understanding equine behaviour and creating the best life possible for our domestic horses. I organised courses so that I could study with the best horse trainers and behaviourists I could access. I developed extensive knowledge and experience about horse welfare and management, studying areas such as hoof trimming, saddle fit, and field management. In 2004 I started working as an equine nutritionist.

I founded and ran both the Natural Horse Group and the Natural Horse Company, which provided events and products aimed at improving the quality of life for domestic horses.

After breaking my back in a simple riding fall, I recognised that I had completely lost my confidence in riding. Determined not to give up, I found approaches that would

help me. This was predominantly a combination of developing my own body awareness, posture and breath-work both in and out of the saddle, and improving my use of reward-based training to establish better communication with my horses. In this way, I overcame my fear and became a confident rider again. I now love to work with anxious horse-owners to build their confidence and joy with their horses.

Connection Training is strongly grounded in science, and I am responsible for bringing up-to-date science into our teaching. This has led me to study modern neuroscience to understand the emotions of horses, how horses learn best, and how to foster good feelings in training and horse life.

Along with Hannah, I pioneered online learning for positive horsemanship. In 2012 and 2013 we ran the world’s first dedicated Equine Clicker Conferences, hosting international panels of speakers, who are leaders in the field of equine reward-based training. I am also a partner in Positive Horse Training, Spain, which hosts residential training courses teaching Connection Training.

Video Resource - Hear our Journey Story.

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This book brings together our deep and wide-ranging knowledge and experience. We hope you enjoy it and that it inspires you to create even better relationships with your horses. They are our true inspiration and have led our journeys all the way. We’d like to thank them all for teaching us everything we know about building close bonds and joy with equines everywhere.

Horses waiting at arena gate for their turn!

Rachel working with Roisin, while the rest of the herd wait for their turn! Connection Training creates horses who love to work and be with you, which is the best feeling in the world.

One

The Emotional Horse

Good training is needed both for the well-being of horses and for us to be able to communicate with them and have fun together. However, good training is an addition to a healthy lifestyle, not a replacement for it. Therefore, we must begin by looking at the management of the horse.

If you start with a relaxed horse, happy in her life, the training will be rewarding and straightforward. But if your horse is already stressed—maybe through separation from herd mates, or being shut in a stable for long hours, or gut pain from having the wrong diet—your training will also be stressed and much less effective. We believe that horse owners have a duty to keep domestic horses in a way that meets their natural needs. These can be summarised with three F’s: friends, freedom, and forage. In this Chapter, we look at the horse’s natural behaviour and emotions, how we can best meet these needs in domesticity, and their impact on learning.

Horse herd running in the snow.

Ethology: The Science of Natural Life

Ethology is the study of animal behaviour and society in their natural habitats. It’s vital to understand horses in their ecological niche so that we can create the best environment for their emotional and physical well-being. When we cannot provide a copycat environment for domestic horses, ethology helps us to understand their needs and provide for them in alternative ways.

Ethology is a rapidly growing area of science. Fascinating studies are being published each year, continually challenging us to improve our horse- keeping practices. We will focus on the basics in this book so that you can easily provide what your horse needs to be calm and relaxed for training. First, let’s take a look at the basic needs of horses.

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Environmental Niche

By the late 1970s there were no truly wild horses left in the world. The horses we generally call ‘wild’ are, in fact, feral, meaning that they were once bred by humans and have since escaped or been released from domesticity. Feral horses live in a broad range of environments, from high deserts to seashores. However, their common characteristic is that they prefer open spaces where they can see possible predators. Horses are good digesters of fibre, so they can live in areas where the grazing is sparse. They are social mammals, living in a group to survive predator attacks and to satisfy their emotional needs.

Horses grazing together.

Friends

Mares live in family bands with long-term bond mates, who provide security and companionship. Each family band has one stallion, or sometimes two. The surplus males form their own bands, called bachelor groups, which provide security and companionship for each other. Stallions will be ousted from family bands as they age or become weak, but generally the mares stay together, with some movement between bands.

Bands are not territorial. Several bands can share large home ranges and enjoy interacting as they encounter each other around the ranges, for example at water holes. Within the band, horses have complex social lives, as befits a highly developed social mammal. Constant communication goes on within the herd, as seen with ear positions, body alignment, spatial arrangements, tail swishing, and more obvious behaviours such as mutual grooming, mating, playing, caring for young, or males challenging each other for supremacy.

If a TV documentary truly showed horses’ lives, it would be too boring for most people; most of the footage would show horses grazing peacefully. You’d need expert commentary to explain the subtle but constant communication between the horses. In a one-hour episode, fifty-five minutes would consist of relaxed grazing interspersed with short sleeping episodes. You’d get about five minutes of action, such as mutual grooming, play, or sexual behaviours. Rarely would you see any high-drama stallion fights, since the vast majority of horse behaviour is about creating and strengthening their social bonds and collaborating to ensure the success and survival of the group.

Freedom

Feral horses, from birth, move about fifteen to twenty miles per day. The prime motive for moving is nutrition. If the grass is lush, they will move less; if sparse, they will move much more.

Movement is highly important to horses’ health. The four hooves act like miniature hearts, since the expansion and contraction of soft tissues in the hoof creates the necessary blood circulation in the lower legs. Movement is also important socially, as horses play, fight, and court with lots of movement.

Freedom also means that horses get to explore and experience different sounds, smells, tastes and sights. Through all the movement and travel, feral horses are constantly encountering new things in their environment.

Forage

A horse’s digestive system needs a constant supply of high-fibre, low-sugar forage. Horses need to eat for sixteen to eighteen hours per day to keep their digestive system functioning correctly and prevent issues such as stomach ulcers and colic.

It is natural for the weight and condition of feral horses to fluctuate. They will lose a lot of weight in winter, then put weight on quickly in the spring as the fresh grass arrives. Then they will lose weight again during the summer months as the grass gets sparser and the foals more demanding. Stallions will lose weight during the mating season too, but autumn brings another flush of grass, and with lower demands, horses can build up weight again to be ready for the winter.

Natural Management

For the well-being of your horse, you need to provide as much of a natural life as possible through pasture, herd, diet, and lifestyle management. This can be difficult to do. Domestic horses are prone to laminitis, colic, and stomach ulcers due to the diets and lifestyles we provide. Giving constant access to rich grazing, for example, can make horses fat and therefore prone to laminitis, if we are unable to provide sufficient movement as well. Any separation from bond mates can cause sufficient stress for stomach ulcers to form, and lack of free movement, along with stress, can make horses prone to colic.

So, forage, friends, and freedom must be provided as a basic condition of keeping a horse. The science of ethology has provided us with the evidence. As this realisation has been accepted by horse owners, new guidelines for keeping horses are being shared. For example, more and more horse management systems enable horses to chew forage for many more hours per day than traditional systems and daily turnout with other horses is prioritised. Innovative concepts such as ‘Paddock Paradise’, track systems, Equi- Central, and high-tech ‘smart’ stables all aim to create a more natural lifestyle and provide the basic requirements for equine well-being.

Horse herd in field.

The Science of Emotions

Once you have provided the basic requirements for your horse, how do you know if he is truly happy? As a horse owner, you know your horse has feelings. You know what he likes and what he doesn’t, when he’s playful, and when he’s frightened. For a long time, the scientific world has disregarded these suppositions because no one has been able to ‘prove’ them. To say your horse felt this or that was to be ‘anthropomorphic’ and unscientific. But science is changing. The developments coming from neuroscience are supporting what we already knew as owners. Horses do have feelings; we recognise them, and they respond to our feelings too.

The scientific word for emotional feelings is ‘affect’ (from the same source as ‘affectionate’). The branch of science that studies the brain is neuroscience, so the scientific term for the study of emotion in the brain is ‘affective neuroscience’. We have found that studying this science has given us an excellent framework for understanding our horses’ emotions and associated behaviour. Connection with your horse is an emotional connection. Trying to avoid being anthropomorphic, explaining everything without that emotional component, does not reflect the truth of our experience. On the other hand, understanding the horse emotionally enhances connection.

As a new science, affective neuroscience includes competing theories about what actually happens in the brain. As this is a book about horse training, we are going to focus on the work of just one prominent scientist, but, if you are interested to explore further, it is a rich and fascinating field. We use the work of Jaak Panksepp as our guide.

Neuroscience is showing us that horses’ emotional brain activity is very similar to humans. Therefore, we think it is entirely valid to ascribe emotions to their behaviours. Panksepp clearly demonstrated that all learning and behaviour has emotion at the base. If something feels good, the animal will work for more of it; if it feels bad, the animal will work to avoid it. Instead of ‘What is my horse doing and what do I want him to do?’ the primary question we ask is ‘How is my horse feeling and how would I like him to feel?’

Panksepp’s Methods

Panksepp studied the emotional systems in mammalian brains. By system, he meant particular structures, chemistries, and neuronal patterns that are consistent when a mammal displays behaviours associated with specific emotions.

Since many people are still sceptical about animal emotions, it is important to know that Panksepp’s work is meticulous and robust. It has been published in top scientific journals and subjected to critical scrutiny by other members of the scientific community, who search for flaws in the work. If flaws are found, the scientist goes back and rechecks the data until everyone is satisfied that the work passes scrutiny. In science there is no ‘proof’, but instead the notion of probability and reproducibility—that is, can other scientists demonstrate the same results? Panksepp’s work passed all these critical tests.

To determine which emotions animals experience, Panksepp applied electrostimulation (a painless procedure) to particular areas of the brain, then observed the animal’s behaviour. He compared this behaviour to the feelings humans reported when the same brain pathway was stimulated. For example, stimulating one area caused humans to report feeling great fear. Rats, stimulated in the same area, demonstrated fear by trying to run away. When another brain area was stimulated, humans expressed great loss and guinea pigs made distress vocalisations. Brain stimulation caused animals to consistently show certain behaviours: fear behaviours, such as freeze or flight; angry behaviours, such as spitting or hissing; and caring behaviours, such as licking their young. Given the same stimulation, the feelings that humans verbally reported correlated closely to the animals’ behaviour. In this way, Panksepp was able to understand how emotions work in the brain and identify which systems were involved in the feelings associated with particular behaviours.

Does This Feel Good to You?

Panksepp also needed to scientifically demonstrate whether the emotions the animals showed felt good or bad to them. For this, he used a common scientific assessment called ‘conditioned place preference or conditioned place aversion’. In other words, does an animal go back to a place where the trial was done, or does it avoid it next time?

To test this, the electrostimulation process was carried out in a particular place. Once this had been done a few times, the animal is given the choice to return to that place or go to a neutral place, not associated with the trial. If the animal returns to the trial site, it is demonstrating conditioned place preference, suggesting the effect was pleasant and the animal would like more. Alternatively, if the animal avoided the trial site and chose the neutral environment, it was demonstrating conditioned place aversion, or avoidance. You have probably observed that your horse demonstrates place preference for a feeding area and place avoidance for a fearful area, such as a horse trailer. Panksepp used this simple approach as part of demonstrating which emotions felt good or bad when stimulated.

Neuroscientists have shown that the brain has no ‘neutral’ state. Panksepp’s brain stimulation felt either positive or negative from the animal’s viewpoint. Emotional systems that feel good are known as ‘appetitive’—that is, the animal has an appetite for them. Systems that feel bad are known as ‘aversive’—the animal would avoid them if it could.

Pony loading at liberty.

Rowan showing place preference for being inside the horse box. Following a progressive training programme, Rowan has experienced relaxation and lots of rewards inside the horsebox and now chooses to go inside.

Horse refusing to go in horse trailer.

This horse is showing place avoidance for the trailer as he does not want to step inside. He would leave the area completely if he could.

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Panksepp’s Seven Emotional Brain Systems

Panksepp identified seven distinct emotional brain systems: SEEKING, RAGE, FEAR, PANIC/GRIEF, CARE, LUST, and PLAY. Place preference was shown for SEEKING, CARE, PLAY, and LUST. Place avoidance was shown for FEAR, RAGE, and PANIC/GRIEF.

You may be wondering why the labels for these systems are written in capital letters. Panksepp deliberately capitalised them to differentiate them from our typical use of these words. He wanted people to understand that he was talking about distinct brain systems, different from each other in terms of brain structures and neurochemistry. These primary emotional systems are present in the brain at birth. That is, these emotions do not have to be learned. The structures involved are deep in the brain and arrived early in the evolutionary process. These systems are innate (inborn) and lead to instinctive behaviours. They are also the systems that are fundamental for the animals’ life learning. Panksepp called them ‘the tools for life’.

These emotional systems have evolved along with the physical behavioural systems too. For example, the SEEKING system’s deepest structure is very close to the olfactory (scenting) system. It appears that the first search systems were based on scent. Following a scent led to sniffing and forward-moving behaviours, which are also characteristic of the SEEKING system. FEAR is closely related to pain, and RAGE to blood-pressure sensors in the arteries. These systems cannot be separated from the physiology of animals. The brain and body are one system, and the emotional systems are at one with physiological systems that try to keep the body stable and functioning well.

Place preference and place aversion.

Instinct: Inner Emotions Drive External Behaviours

Instinct is behaviour that new-borns don’t have to learn. The mammal performs behaviours, such as searching for the nipple, from some sort of innate programming. These behaviours are not a response to an external environment stimulus. But what drives the behaviour? This is a key question scientists have been trying to answer for a long time.

Certainly, searching for milk is often the first behaviour we see. In species like horses, that requires a lot of other behaviours: getting up, moving around, and finding the sweet spot. We know the behaviour is not driven by hunger or thirst. Why? Because new-borns normally arrive in a good blood-sugar state. It is an evolutionary advantage to be well-fed at birth, since getting the next meal is a risky business. The better nutritional state the animal is in at birth, the more chance it has of surviving.

If searching for the nipple is not caused by a feeling of hunger, what else could drive the behaviour? Panksepp liked to call these innate impulses ‘ancestral memories’: information passed down through the generations that contains the instructions for survival for that species. Therefore the foal is pre-programmed to get to its feet and find the nipple to drink.

The emotional system that is highly active in this process is the SEEKING system. It is associated with sniffing and forward movement. The first voluntary move the foal makes is to lift its head. This behaviour is triggered by the arousal of the SEEKING system.

At just 8 hours old, Maverick is already standing and suckling competently.

At just 8 hours old, Maverick is already standing and suckling competently.

No external environmental stimulus is required to initiate the head lift. The brain’s SEEKING system gets aroused by internal brain instructions, and the associated behaviour is to lift the head and scent the air.The SEEKING system feels good; it is appetitive. In other words, the brain chemistry involved with the arousal of the SEEKING system creates good feelings in the brain, arising mainly from the release of dopamine. Therefore, the search for food resources, even before the actual reward of finding the food, feels good.

As a foal starts to move her head voluntarily, following instinct, learning immediately happens. The scientific term for learning is ‘conditioning’. As soon as the foal lifts her head, the muscles, tendons, and nerves that are required for head lifting start to get conditioned—in other words, more efficient at the behaviour. The brain connections to this behaviour also get conditioned. Certain neurons fire up and start to create pathways in the brain, which is part of the process of making behaviours more efficient. This learning is taking place in a feel-good brain state, so these movements will feel good. The end point of these behaviours is to drink milk, which is the food reward. But all along the way to gaining that reward, the foal’s brain is being rewarded by having an aroused SEEKING system: by the increasing intensity of the milk smell, by the protective bulk of her mother’s body (which stimulates the CARE system too), and then by the muzzle touch at the udder. It is the brain that is being rewarded, by the release of dopamine and other feel-good chemicals. The brain will note which behaviour caused a dopamine release and will instruct the body to repeat those behaviours, so the foal learns how to find the milk quicker and quicker. Each time the foal drinks some milk, the search is over and the SEEKING system powers down momentarily.

At the same time, the foal is struggling. She lifts her head, but then gets tired and drops it again. She finds the teat, but the mare moves and she loses it again. These problems stimulate the feel-bad systems: PANIC/GRIEF when she loses track and RAGE when she fails and gets frustrated. These systems stimulate the release of the chemicals associated with feeling stressed, such as norepinephrine. The brain is receiving punishers as well as rewards.

What we can conclude from this is:

• Behaviours are always associated with innate emotional states. Every behaviour has a feels good or feels bad history in the brain

• All learning, therefore, is associated with these emotional states, good or bad.

• Learning often involves both good and bad emotional states. Frustration, for example, is usually part of the learning process.

• For horses to enjoy learning, it is important that the good-feeling emotional states are aroused much more than any associated bad-feeling emotional states.

• Animals’ brains are designed to cope with bad-feeling emotional states, provided they are relieved from the stress, too. Not getting relief creates chronic stress, especially in flight animals who are primed to react to acute stressors for survival, but not chronic stressors. Chronic stress leads to physiological changes which may develop into illness.

The Connection Training approach mimics these innate natural behaviours that come packaged in the foal. For example, one of the first things we teach the horse is to touch an object with his muzzle. This stimulates the SEEKING system and mimics the foal’s search for the nipple, or an older horse’s search for a tasty plant. When the muzzle touches the object, we deliver a reward, exactly as milk is delivered when the foal’s muzzle reaches the udder or when the horse finds a special leaf amongst the grass. Our aim is for the training to feel good overall and thus for the horse to feel good about us. They associate us with feeling good, and so the beginning of the connection is made.

Now let’s look at the seven systems in more detail and see how they create behaviour and affect training.

The Appetitive Emotional Brain Systems

The positive-feeling systems are SEEKING, CARE, LUST, and PLAY. When these brain systems are triggered, they will make your horse feel good. He’ll repeat anything that triggered them, from returning to a specific location to repeating a certain rewarding behaviour. At Connection Training, we work to maximise the SEEKING, CARE, and PLAY systems during training so that our horses find training rewarding and desirable.

SEEKING System

The SEEKING system is responsible for making animals ‘get up and go’ to search for what they need to survive and thrive. An activated SEEKING system feels good to animals because it drives them forward to what they want and need. The behavioural characteristics of an active SEEKING system are moving forward, sniffing, searching, exploring and problem-solving with varying degrees of excitement. The SEEKING system is also employed in finding solutions to aversive events, such as escaping a predator.

Although the SEEKING system is always aroused to some extent, chronic stress and traumatic experiences can cause it to operate at a very low level of arousal. This is actually depression. The horse has little interest in the world and is not curious about the training, the environment, or perhaps even food treats. Generally, in this case, we say the horse is ‘shut down’. It can be caused by chronic pain, some medical conditions, loss of a beloved companion, living conditions or by learned helplessness.

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Naturally, your horse’s SEEKING system is engaged when he is browsing, searching, and exploring.

Naturally, your horse’s SEEKING system is engaged when he is browsing, searching, and exploring.

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Learned helplessness often occurs with punishment-based training when the horse has learned that it is futile to try any behaviours because the response is always punishment. For example, a horse who tried to avoid bit pressure by opening his mouth. The human then attaches a flash noseband, preventing this, and the horse cannot then find a release from the pain. So they learn that they are helpless in that situation and their best option is to withdraw and not to try at all. Systems of horsemanship that say ‘I don’t want my horse to think’ or ‘I want my horse to obey my commands without question’ may create learned helplessness. Horses trained this way look robotic when they are with their trainers, do everything that is asked of them without question, and are mentally closed to environmental stimuli. Their SEEKING systems will be operating at a low level of arousal during training and they are likely to be shut down in other situations.

In training, activating the SEEKING system is a key element of your horse’s curiosity, mental engagement and problem-solving.

In training, activating the SEEKING system is a key element of your horse’s curiosity, mental engagement and problem-solving.

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CARE System

In many mammals, the CARE system is activated primarily in mothers when they have young, but also in fathers who are involved in care giving. It is also the system for bonding in herd mammals, such as horses. Behaviours associated with this system are licking, mutual grooming, touching, close spatial arrangements, mimicking others’ behaviour, sharing food, and eating together. These bonding behaviours are driven by oxytocin release in the brain. This feels good, and horses will prefer to spend time with other horses and humans they have experienced CARE with. This is an important part of training and building a bond with your horse - you want him to come running when he sees you, rather than be indifferent or try to avoid you.

Stroking, scratching and hanging out with your horse to build your bond.

Simply hanging out with your horse is a lovely way to build your bond, including grooming and scratching if your horse enjoys it.

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Horses mutually grooming.

In herd life, the CARE system shows up through behaviours such as mutual grooming, nuzzling and being in close proximity.

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When watching horses, the easiest way to determine pair bonds and thus the action of the CARE system is to observe their spatial arrangements. Pair-bonded horses will graze closely together, usually mimicking each other’s stance, such as leading with the same foot. They often graze with muzzles almost touching. They will loaf together and stand head to tail so they can keep each other free of flies. They will lie close together, or one will lie down with the other standing over in a close and probably guarding way.

PLAY System

The PLAY system is strongly active in young mammals, who will exhibit play behaviours if they are relatively secure. In adults, play is generally continued more by males and is associated with fight behaviours such as play-fighting. Horses also play by running together, rearing, prancing, bucking, and leaping. The mares enjoy this type of play, especially when it’s sexual play. There is also object play, which naturally occurs when horses are exploring something new, such as picking up sticks or splashing around in water. In domestic horses, object play is seen in behaviours such as chasing balls and picking up objects.

The PLAY system is designed so that young animals learn to perfect the innate behaviours they are born primed to perform. For example, running play helps young foals strengthen their limbs, condition their muscles, and become better at balance, transitions, negotiating rough terrain and moving in sync with the herd.

Male horses play fighting.

Play can take many forms for horses, such as running, posturing and playing with objects. Male horses love to playfight; older horses like Pegaso will spend time playing with colts like Tiny.

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Play also performs a vital social function in social mammals, since it is through play that young animals create their relationships with each other. Play in young males is important for them to learn fighting skills and who they can fight with and who they should avoid. One study showed that stallions played up to 6 times more with their sons than other young stallions in the bachelor herds. This will confer an advantage on the sons who will be more likely to succeed in winning a band and passing on their genes.

How you incorporate PLAY with your horse will depend on your horse’s personal preferences. Hannah’s pony, Toby, has always loved to run and posture with her, but play could include fun puzzle-solving, object games and exploration or other movement-based exercises your horse enjoys.

How you incorporate PLAY with your horse will depend on your horse’s personal preferences. Hannah’s pony, Toby, has always loved to run and posture with her, but play could include fun puzzle-solving, object games and exploration or other movement-based exercises your horse enjoys.

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LUST System

Clearly, the LUST system is there to initiate procreation. Lust is a high-energy emotion and creates lots of the play behaviours we love in horses: the high-stepping movement, poses, rears, and collection. It also creates many unwanted behaviours in domestic horses, such as posing and rearing when we’re not asking for it and distraction, spookiness, and increased separation anxiety.

Sexual relationships form strong cohesive behaviours, so the LUST system will be affectively positive. For the neighbouring bands of bachelor stallions, however, it is presumably a frustrating emotion. They can smell mares in season and watch sexual behaviours but cannot join in. Thus, they will fight with other stallions if they think there is an opportunity to mate, despite living happily in bachelor herds. Research has shown that, in domesticity, stallions housed in groups, rather than singularly as we tend to keep them, are more relaxed and virile than lone stallions.

Dealing with the consequences of sexual behaviour in domestic horses creates a moral dilemma for horse owners, and it’s a debate that needs to be continually addressed. As far as the LUST system is concerned, being able to enjoy and express it creates an enriched life, but not allowing full sexual behaviour creates frustration. In the rest of our discussion, we’ll leave the LUST system out because it is not an emotional system we typically engage with for training. However, the effects of the LUST system do create issues in training, such as the unpredictability of a mare in season or when working with stallions and some geldings. We need to be aware of these issues, and there may be direct behaviours arising from the LUST system which we do have to manage through training. An example would be teaching stallions to be quiet and relaxed around other horses when being ridden.

Horses mating.

Although the LUST system leads to mating, there are many other behaviours associated with it, such as sniffing, posing, squealing and nipping.

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Domestic mare and stallion.