Training

Study results show just how skilled horses are in balancing the forces required to stay fixed to one spot during the piaffe.

Tight-fitting saddles and muscle pain along the back were linked to more abnormal behaviours during tacking-up, the study team found.

Horses ridden by riders with better pelvic mobility and control showed significantly fewer conflict behaviors.

It is highly likely that pain-relieving drugs are behind many of the catastrophic injuries seen on the racetrack, according to researchers.

Brooke’s Animal Welfare Indicators Repository is aimed at professionals worldwide to assess and improve equine welfare in their work.

“Differences in muscle activation were most pronounced in the gluteal muscle during jump stride.”

“I don’t think there is any other animal relationship which is quite the same, or has the same complexity,” Professor Sarah Freeman says.

Heel contraction is often down to breed and other factors, researchers in Poland say: “The results disputed the popular myth of metal shoes being main cause of contraction.“

Qatar study of endurance horses shows the feasibility of identifying potential metabolic signatures as predictors of performance.

Despite a reluctance to seek advice, 84.9% of surveyed owners were satisfied with their purchase and would buy their horse again.

“Owners need to be made aware that these behaviours are not normal and may be a manifestation of underlying problems.”

The research involved 17 healthy three-year-old Thoroughbred racehorses trained daily at Partynice Race Course in Poland.

Educational strategies may prove important in safeguarding recreational horse welfare, according to researchers.

Four factors significantly increase the odds of injury among Thoroughbred racehorses, Australian researchers found.

In half the cases of horse injuries sustained during transport in an Italian study, the handler was injured too.

Researchers present the first evidence of a link between object-directed curiosity and learning performance in young horses in two very different learning tasks.

Neuromuscular biopsies can help look below the surface of a horse’s skin to evaluate, diagnose, and provide treatments without making a single cut.

Dirt surfaces showed higher rates of forelimb injuries compared to other surfaces, while hind limbs were more likely to experience a fatal fracture on turf than on dirt.