Equine welfare has always been a concern in our industry, but recent years have seen it move from a peripheral to the foremost consideration in our sport. As awareness of equine welfare has grown, people are not only being called out for incidents of abuse but also for poor management of the horses in their care. Here at HQ, we’re delighted with this change and look forward to seeing improvements in horse management, care and treatment in the coming years. We believe these changes are necessary and cannot come soon enough to protect the animals we love so much from mistreatment at the hands of those who don’t know better or, worse still, know better and refuse to change.
Our series
Social media is abuzz with talk of the five domains of equine welfare, social license to operate, and the Ten Training Principles of the International Society for Equitation Science (ISES), but how much do we actually understand these governing frameworks, and what can we all learn from them in terms of our own horses and riding?
Over the next few months, HQ will examine some of the evidence-based research on equine welfare to educate us all on how to optimise our horses’ health and happiness.
We can’t wait to share this research with you and would love for you to share your welfare-related questions with us so we can all learn how to create the best lives possible for our equine companions. In this article, we review ISES’s Ten Training Principles.
ISES
The International Society for Equitation Science (ISES) is a not-for-profit organisation that “chiefly aims to facilitate research into the training of horses to enhance horse welfare and improve the horse-rider relationship…ISES welcomes initiatives that aim to improve sporthorse welfare and applauds the continued efforts of researchers working to ensure that recommendations/guidelines are supported by scientific evidence and adhere to the principles of learning theory.”
In line with their mission, ISES created 10 training principles that should be applied to all forms of horse training, regardless of discipline.
The ten principles
Human and horse welfare depend on training methods and management that demonstrate:
1. Regard for human and horse safety
“Disregarding safety greatly increases the danger of human-horse interactions.”
- Acknowledge that a horse’s size, power and potential flightiness presents a significant risk.
- Avoid provoking aggressive or defensive behaviours from the horse (like kicking or biting).
- Recognise and respect the horse’s dangerous zones (e.g. the hindquarters).
- Make safe use of all tools, equipment and the environment.
- Recognise the dangers of being inconsistent or confusing.
- Ensure that horse and human are appropriately matched.
- Avoid using methods or equipment that cause pain, distress or injury to the horse.
HQ’s summary of principle one
This one is super simple to understand, but we all need reminders from time to time – be safe around horses!
2. Regard for the nature of horses
“Isolation, restricted locomotion and limited foraging compromise welfare.”
- Ensure welfare needs are met through providing 24/7 forage, equine company and the freedom to move around.
- Avoid any aversive management practices such as whisker-trimming or ear-twitching.
- Avoid assuming a role of dominance in human/horse interactions.
- Recognise signs of pain and manage accordingly.
- Respect the social nature of horses (e.g. the importance of touch with conspecifics and the effects of separation).
- Avoid movements that may be perceived as threatening (e.g. jerky, rushing movements or grabbing movements).
HQ’s summary of principle two
Put the species-specific needs of your horse first, at all times.
3. Regard for horse’s mental and sensory abilities
“Over- or underestimating the horse’s mental capabilities can have significant welfare consequences.”
- Avoid overestimating the horse’s mental abilities e.g. by thinking things like ‘he knows what he did wrong’.
- Avoid underestimating the horse’s mental abilities e.g. by thinking ‘he’s only a horse’.
- Avoid assuming that horses think as humans do.
- Avoid implying mental states when describing and interpreting horse behaviours.
- Acknowledge that horses see and hear differently to humans and allowing for this.
- Avoid long training sessions by keeping repetitions to a minimum and avoiding overloading.
HQ’s summary of principle three
Understand that horses interpret the world differently (not better or worse) than us and our work with them must accommodate for this.
4. Regard for current emotional states
“High arousal and lack of reinforcement may lead to stress and negative affective states.”
- Ensure trained responses and reinforcements are consistent.
- Avoid the use of pain/discomfort in training.
- Avoid triggering flight/fight/freeze reactions.
- Maintain minimum arousal for the task during training.
- Help the horse to relax with stroking and voice.
- Encourage the horse to adopt relaxed postures as part of training (e.g. head lowering on a free rein).
- Avoid high arousal when using tactile or food motivators.
- Don’t underestimate the horse’s capacity for suffering.
- Encourage positive emotional states in training.
HQ’s summary of principle four
Consider your horse’s emotional state in all of your work with him.
5. Correct use of habituation/desensisation/calming methods
“Desensitisation techniques that involve flooding may lead to stress and produce phobias.”
- Gradually approach objects that the horse is afraid of or, if possible, gradually bring such aversive objects closer to the horse (systematic desensitization).
- Gain control of the horse’s limb movements (e.g. step the horse back) while aversive objects are maintained at a safe distance and gradually brought closer (over-shadowing)
- Associate aversive stimuli with pleasant outcomes by giving food treats when the horse perceives the scary object (counterconditioning).
- Ignore undesirable behaviours and reinforce desirable alternative responses (differential reinforcement).
- Avoid flooding techniques (forcing the horse to endure aversive stimuli).
HQ’s summary of principle five
Help your horse to understand things that scare him. Do not frighten him through overexposure – this is both a welfare issue and counterproductive to training.
6. Correct use of operant conditioning
“The incorrect use of operant conditioning can lead to serious behaviour problems that manifest as aggression, escape, apathy and compromise welfare.”
- Understand how operant conditioning works: i.e. performance of behaviours become more or less likely as a result of their consequences.
- Tactile pressures (e.g. from the bit, leg, spur or whip) must be removed at the onset of the correct response.
- Minimise delays in reinforcement because they are ineffective and unethical.
- Use combined reinforcement (amplify pressure-release rewards with tactile or food rewards where appropriate).
- Avoid active punishment.
HQ’s summary of principle six
Understand that operant conditioning is the process whereby behaviours become more or less likely as a result of their consequences, and apply this process sensitively with your equine companion. The operant conditioning ‘quadrants’ of interest in ethical horse training are negative reinforcement (i.e. the removal of an aversive stimulus AS SOON AS the horse performs the desired behaviour) and positive reinforcement (i.e. the addition of something pleasant when the horse performs a desired behaviour). No form of punishment (whether through applying an aversive stimulus or removing something a horse finds pleasurable) is acceptable.
7. Correct use of classical conditioning
“The absence of benign (light) signals can lead to stress and compromised welfare.”
- Train the uptake of light signals by placing them before a pressure-release sequence.
- Precede all desirable responses with light signals.
- Avoid unwanted stimuli overshadowing desired responses (e.g. the horse may associate an undesirable response with an unintended signal from the environment).
HQ’s summary of principle seven
Build non-pressure related signals into your training, such as voice cues, to allow the horse to respond to your request without having to experience pressure.
8. Correct use of shaping
“Poor shaping leads to confusion.”
- Break down training tasks into the smallest achievable steps and progressively reinforce each step toward the desired behaviour.
- Plan training to make the correct response as obvious and easy as possible.
- Maintain a consistent environment to train a new task and give the horse the time to learn safely and calmly.
- Only change one contextual aspect at a time (e.g. trainer, place, signal).
HQ’s summary of principle eight
Make training easy for the horse by breaking down each request into small steps and clearly rewarding the horse for each step he gets right.
9. Correct use of signals/cues
“Unclear, ambiguous or simultaneous signals lead to confusion.”
- Ensure signals are easy for the horse to discriminate from one another.
- Ensure each signal has only one meaning.
- Ensure signals for different responses are never applied concurrently.
HQ’s summary of principle nine
Avoid confusion for your horse by using signals such as voice cues for one behaviour only and only applying one signal at a time.
10. Regard for self-carriage
“Lack of self-carriage can promote hyper-reactive responses and compromise welfare.”
- Aim for self-carriage in all methods, and at all levels of training.
- Train the horse to maintain:
- Gait
- Tempo
- Stride length
- Direction
- Head and neck carriage
- Body posture
- Avoid forcing any posture
- Avoid nagging with legs, spurs or reins i.e. avoid trying to maintain responses with relentless signalling.
HQ’s summary of principle ten
Do not use constant pressure or nagging aids, but rather improve your training to help your horse achieve self-carriage.