Social facilitation of trotting: Can horses perceive and adapt to the movement of another horse?

Abstract

Exercise intensity is prone to be self-regulated in horses exercising freely. The main drivers include social, feeding and escape behaviors, as well as the operant conditioning. We hypothesized that self-regulated exercise intensity may increase due to the presence of another horse exercising ahead. Seven horses were assigned to a 2x2 crossover trial following treadmill familiarization. Video images of a trotting horse were displayed on the wall in front of the experimental unit (Visual), which was positioned in the treadmill. Physiological and behavioral markers were further compared with a control visual stimulus (Co), comprising a racetrack image without horses. Horses were sampled during a constant load exercise test (1) at rest (baseline), (2) after the warm-up (0 – 10th minute) and (3) after visual stimulation or control (10th– 12th minutes of the SET) to quantify plasma lactate and glucose concentration, heart rate, head angle, as well as behavioral markers. Following visual stimulation, heart rate (130.8 ± 27.8 b.p.m.) was higher than control (84.7 ± 15.1 b.p.m., P = .017), as was plasma lactate (Visual ‐ 5.28 ± 1.48 mg/dl; Co -3.27 ± 1.24 mg/dl, P = .042) and head angle (Visual ‐ 36.43 ± 3.69°; Co -25.14 ± 4.88°, P = .003). The prevalence of “ears forward” behavior was also higher following Visual (100% - 7/7) than Co (14% - 1/7, P = .004). These results suggest that visual stimulus (1) was safe and well tolerated and (2) prompted the anaerobic lactic pathways and shifted the behavior to a vigilant state. In conclusion, horses were able to perceive and adapt to a social environment. Our findings validate the use of social facilitation of trotting to encourage horses to move forward avoiding the use of the whip.