People often say that horses are intelligent animals, but how smart are they? For many riders this seems to be an important question given their unique relationship with these animals. The question 'How smart are horses?' has provoked a variety of response in literature, some contradictory. People often try to compare horses with cats or dogs but in fact we shouldn't do that. It is very hard to compare two different species with each other given their totally different set of evolutionary values. Cats and dogs are predatory animals, they have some kind of aggressiveness which you can guarantee even 'housecats' and 'homedogs' will produce the appropriate stimuli. Horses are prey animals. This means they are the hunted. Their instinct is to flee. They have one basic instinct: escape or be eaten. Because of that, some dismiss horses as being instinctive rather than cognitive in their behaviour. While equines do display a well-tuned and instinctive flight response, the suggestion of horses not being cognitive is clearly ridiculous for anyone who spends time around horses. Horses know commands and body language. They understand the sounds of meal time. So some kind of mentality is certainly present. But this can be seen in every herd species on the planet. It is very important to explore equine herd dynamics in order to understand the mind of the horse. Ethology is the scientific and objective study of animal behaviour, with a focus on behaviour under natural conditions. Equine ethology ‘s studies started in 1970. Many authors deal with this important question: “how intelligent are horses?”. Among them, Ernest Menault. He wrote a book titled “The intelligence of animals’ (1868). In this book he writes: “The noblest conquest that man has ever made is, with no doubt, that of the horse. Everything in this animal breathes out vivacity and energy. That need of continual movement, that impatience during repose, that nervous movement of the lips, that stamping of the feet, all indicate a pressing need of activity. The fullness of the skull and the expansion of his forehead show intelligence. The usual marks of the intelligent horse are a developed head, eyes full and deep, jaws short, broad forehead, ears erect and diverging one from the other, and both eyes and ears very sensitive… Not only is his brain developed and provided with circomvolutions but he also possesses exquisite senses’”… So, Manault believes some kind of equine intelligence exists, not only with scientific basis but also with poetry… We should always keep in mind that domesticated horses must face great challenges, having to live in largely unsuitable or artificial environments. They must suppress instincts while learning tasks that are not natural behaviours, and must co-exist with humans who sometimes behave bizarrely – at least from an equine standpoint.
