Fear Testing of Foals May Help Increase Safety

in groups in a loose housing system with stallions and mares together. At oneandahalf years of age the stallions were moved to another stable and were housed in littered boxes with five stallions in each box. The horses were still handled only for veterinary or farrier treatment.
The study is the first of its kind to examine fearfulness in horses over such a long period of time and from such an early age. The researchers were fortunate to be able to study this relatively large group of horses housed together from foal to adult. When these kinds of studies are done it is crucial that the horses are kept under the same rearing conditions throughout. Otherwise changes in housing management and training could affect the horses reactions and thus the results. 
Test Design
In the study all stallions were introduced to a fear test a novel object test NOT1 three times at different ages five months one year and three years.
Before the first test each foal was trained to enter a test arena on their own and walk to their dam who was placed at the other end of the arena. In the NOT1 test a white plastic cover with boxes of different colours was placed in the middle of the test arena. During the test the foal should pass the test object on its way to the dam in the fivemonth test or to a feed container in the one and threeyear tests.
Two additional types of novel object tests were conducted at one and three years of age in which novel objects different from those in the NOT1 test were used. 
Video was recorded of all tests and equipment for measuring the heart rate was mounted on a girth. The following recordings were made 
Heart rate
Latency to reach the damfeed container
Alertness vigilant position with elevated headneck focusing on the object
Sniffing at the test object
Touching the test object
The study tested the associations between the various types of behaviour and the heart rate as well as the association of the test results between the various ages. The researchers found that behavioural reactions and heart rate correlated within tests and there was coherence between the tests at the various ages. The tests also showed that foals behavioural reactions towards novel objects were the best predictor of their fearfulness later in life. Thus fearfulness in horses appears to be a relatively stable trait which is