Most knowledgeable horse owners can gauge their horses’ emotions fairly easily, but do you regularly considerthe impact your emotions might have on your horse and his general disposition each day?
Researchers at the University of Sussex have studied the result of exposing horses to happy and angry human facial expressions in photographs. These findings can give us clear ideas on how to act when in close contact with your horses to ensure these animals' welfare and safety are a priority. Not only can these highly intelligent animals detect our moods, positive or negative, but they also have a ‘memory for emotion’. Meaning short-term exposure to any emotion can cause a horse to change their behaviour to the emotion they have detected.
This study implies that as a horse owner, you must consider this when putting horses under pressure, for example preparing to compete. Equestrian sports involving studs, show jumping, eventing, and polo, can be stressful when getting the horse and rider ready. When dealing with highly strung, valuable horses the safety and wellbeing of both horse and handler is of great importance. The laborious and at times stressful application of traditional metal studs can create anxiety, often before competing, and leave the horse and handler tense.
Keeping in mind the horse's response to our emotions, these new generation polymer studs create a safer and more efficient solution to studding horses and therefore help to create more harmony between human and horse.
How can studs make such a difference?
Our first-generation polymer studs are less laborious and in turn, faster to get in. This means that the rider, groom or long-suffering partner/parent spends less time bent over a hoof, arguing with a spanner and a stud which wants to cross-thread itself and the horse spends less time standing on three legs. The process is unlikely to put anyone in a good mood.
StudFast © 2023
Mirror of the mind
Commentaires