Tuesday 17 April 2012

Body talk!


This week I am busy uploading content onto our Ridden Horse Behaviour wiki, which hopefully goes public at the end of the week.  

 The section on body language is focussing on the eyes, ears, mouth, nose and tail as these seem the best indicators of the horse’s internal state.

 It was interesting to see a poster presentation at the 2011 ISES conference investigating the attractiveness of equine photographs. The researchers,  Inga Wolframm and M Schnaudt, fitted participants with eye tracking equipment and asked them to rate 25 photographs of horses for attractiveness, and state whether they would  consider buying the horse (if they were looking to buy!). The results showed that the eyes, mouth and ears are the areas most looked at by potential buyers. Qualitative analysis of the photographs considered most attractive showed that the horses chosen all had pricked ears, an alert expression, and a mouth without tension. 
So back to the wiki: so far only ‘ears’ are complete!  I have been scouring YouTube for examples of happy ears in the ridden horse and  I think these are the winners:

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