The Psychology of Performance Horses

labeled as quiet. But flightiness can be considered a desirable personality trait in a racehorse where it would be certainly be regarded as a flaw in a reining or cutting horse.
Identifying the specific traits that are sought after within different disciplines is important in the development of objective criteria for evaluating equine temperament as a predictor of future performance and could prove to be a useful tool for creating effective training regimens.
The research report adds that temperament testing is often only useful for practical purposes if it is predictive of how an animal reacts to a range of situations over time. Some studies have shown that while individual animals are consistent in their response to different tests consistency over time is more difficult to assess.
Understanding the temperament of a young horse and then being able to accurately assess its future potential in performance would provide a huge advantage for riders planning to invest considerable time and money in conditioning and training. But as McBride and Mills point out much more validationtype research measuring a full range of conciselydefined early temperament traits for the purpose of subsequent correlation with disciplinespecific performance is required.
While temperament is greatly impacted by genetics other factors affecting equine performance may be more dependent upon external factors.
A horses mood and emotional reaction are in large part shaped by any number of stressors in a given environmental situation and play a significant role in determining how he experiences and responds to that environment which by extension impacts his performance. However it seems that an experienced rider can using superbly timed training aids have a considerable influence on the horses mood and emotional reaction.
Ultimately high performance riders that are doing well are intuitively and consistently making these sorts of judgments correctly about their horses says McBride. Nonetheless we often see it go wrong at the point of competition i e. refuse jumps run out dont respond which means that there might be ways of preempting offdays by monitoring mood and emotion in more consistent and standardized ways. The studies done on mood and emotion have predominantly used inferred measures of optimism and pessimism.
If a horses mood is negative then in all probability his emotional reaction to a given situation will be negative which is likely to result in poor performance. McBride and Mills point out that mood assessment before competition could potentially be a useful predictor of poor performance