Equine Intelligence

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mickey

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Rather a broad topic I know (!) BUT I wondered if anyone had any thoughts and facts about how intelligent horses are. I guess there are different forms of intelligence - like cognitive processing and emotional intelligence, but I am keen to learn more.

For example, does a horse store a bulk of memories of past events like we do? To what extent do horses have emotions? Do they have a sense of days and how many might have passed? Do they have expectations of how they want their life to pan-out?

Any thoughts welcome! I think this is quite interesting.
Sorry if these are silly examples!
 
as with humans their intelligence levels vary, i've had clever ones and less so!
definitely feel emotions, including jealousy, imho.
re: memory - the grey in my siggy was 1 i took up the levels for years, no-one else ever rode her. i rode her at an event once, and a few years later (having done many intervening events all over the place) took her back to the same place, same level xc (advanced), the course started out the same but then after jumping a fence the new course went L when former course went R. she hung R for quite a few strides, i had to convince her that she needed to go L this time. i was really surprised, she'd done tons of courses in between, i was shocked that she remembered the course so clearly, and where to go... she was usually very responsive and honest xc, so this was definitely a memory, it wasn't hanging towards lorry park, other horses or anything.
they definitely have amazing memories. reasoning powers vary...!
i had another horse, very clever. he was a bit of a monkey. he was in paddock beside arena while i was riding another horse, and the elec fence across the paddock was v low, he could have just hopped over it. he obviously wanted to, more grass over there, but i had a word with him, said his name and "don't you dare" in an admonishing way, and he thought about it and decided it wasn't worth the trouble he'd get into... he dithered and then i saw him make a conscious decision not to hop over it. had to keep an eye on him through whole schooling session and remind him occasionally that i was still watching, though...! that to me looked like reasoning powers...
i don't think they have any sense of time passing, or of expectations. they live totally in the moment, coloured by memories... all about survival really i guess.
i prob have lots more anecdotes but those are the two that have really struck me in about 30 years with horses!
 
I am very interested in the subject of animal intelligence. Boringly so, lol. I think we underestimate the intelligence and consciousness of most animals. Did you see the Panorama programme on the amazing intelligence of dogs?. Not enough study has been done on this subject. We are too quick to try to judge intelligence by human standards. Horses tend not to choose to communicate with humans too much I think, but I have an interesting story to illustrate this. About 4 years ago I sold my mare who had bonded quite strongly with a mare of a similar age in her herd. This mare had never ever showed me or any other human any emotion and ignored everyone and hated to be caught. Anyway the day after my mare left I went into the fields to catch my other horse and as I was leading my horse from the top field I heard a thundering of hooves and it was my former horses friend, who came up right beside me and proceeded to keep whinneying at me and looking around as if to say "Where is Milly". She followed me close to my side continuing to be very vocal until I left the field. I have no doubt at all that this mare who had never approached me at all in 3 years, knew that I was her friends owner and was trying to ask me where she had gone. It brings a lump to my throat even now to think about it. We totally underestimat animal emotions in my opinion.
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Mickey I have a friend who does not believe that horses have emotions at all. However, I believe that since emotions are only chemicals washing around our brains, that horses can have emotions.

Besides which, I have a horse which cries with jealousy, literally, if I pay more attention to his stable mate than I do to him. I don't titbit my horses and they have already had their feed, so it is purely my attention he is seeking. And they all experience fear. I've known of friend-horses pining for one that leaves or dies, and of course mares can scream for days for a dead foal and I would have to interpret that as sorrow at bereavement. I'm sure mine get depressed if the wind is too high for too long, as well. Excitement - of course. My hunter will start to shake gently as I start to plait.

So I think they have quite a range of emotion.
 
Captain is incredibly possive and jealous, to the extent that Elizabeth can't go into the horse next door's stable because he will try to attack it through the bars, yet will quite happily watch us come and go from Fany's stable on the otherside of him.

Cappy also pines when we go away, to the extent that at our last yard he refused to eat or interact with anyone.

Fany had recently lost a foal before she came to us, she got very distressed when a mare on our yard had a foal. The new mum also seemed to understand Fany, because whilst she was perfectly alright with all the other horses, mares, stallion and geldings, she would flee with foalie to the other side of the field when Fany was ridden past. So Fany's grieving was upsetting to the new mum. I honestly believe Fany would have stolen the foal given the chance, so great was her grief.

So I truly believe they feel a range of emotions.
 
Horses do have emotions-they can grieve for a dead pairbond for a very long time and be depressed about it, they can get 'sibling jealously' if you have two horses and you do something with one and not the other, they are happy and excited, and can get grumpy and cross.
 
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Of course they are intelligent only a numpty would ask this question on this forum?

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OP did not ask if they were intelligent but what our thoughts are on how intelligent

Like someone said they vary like humans. I also think they can switch off too and become more like zombies with the wrong environment. Someone coined a phrase for it a while ago but I forget what it is now.

I've had some horses that couldn't figure out how to get into the next field if the opening wasn't near to them, it's like they couldn't get it that they had to go further away first before coming back again. Others have figured it out for themselves easily
 
Thank you for your most constructive and insightful reply. I did NOT actually ask whether horses HAD intelligence, I actually asked to WHAT EXTENT they had intelligence. I then proceeded to open the topic up by asking about emotional intelligence, cognitive processing and raising some questions.

As other people have replied they obviously don't think I am a numpty. Thank you so much.
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I work as an Assistant Psychologist (humans), in this role I have undertaken many formal assessments of human intelligence, such as the WAIS-III.

Current thinking within psychology considers that there are two forms of intelligence- fluid intelligence (gf) and crystallised intelligence (gc). Within psychometric assessments- fluid intelligence is measured- that is generally speaking ones ability to problem solve. Crystallised intelligence on the other hand refers to information/knowledge that is acquired throughout one's life span.

Emotional intelligence is not formally assessed in IQ testing.

Having owned several horses, I consider that they are very good at 'problem solving.' Ted is able to untie himself, undo his stable door, among other things, all of which require the ability to problem solve. Initially they may learn through trial and error, but Ted appears to be able to transfer the problem solving skills to other settings; indicating that he has 'learnt.'

Also, both Ted and Toby appear to exhibit 'emotional' behaviour. Horses being social animals are likely to have a range of 'emotions' as being flight animals they rely upon their ability to react to the fear emotions of their herd. Without this 'emotional intelligence' they would risk loosing their lives.

As for formally assessing intelligence with horses, it would be very difficult, although not impossible. However, it is unlikely to happen given the huge costs that would be involved.
 
Definitely lots of horses have the smarts. Often though, sadly, their humans are too ignorant to realise just how smart their horse is.
 
I definitely think that they are more capable and intelligent than many give them credit for (and I think this about most animals). On the emotion front, when one of my ponies had to be put to sleep in the field, another of our ponies was really distraught. For a long time afterwards he would go and stand in the spot where she died, just standing there. They were good buddies and had probs been together 10 years or so. There was something silly like a 20 year age gap between them but they really loved each other.
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I think it varies from horse to horse, again just like people!
The thought that they do have emotions and complexed thought processes makes me love them even more!
Interesting point about the ability to problem solve, I wish more research would be done into animal intelligence.
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It would certainly be interesting to explore equine intelligence further. I would guess that this has not been widely investigated as, generally speaking us 'humans' do not research things unless there is likely to a gain or benefit from the research. Other than being very interesting, I'm not sure how knowing how clever are horses are, will be of great benefit or use, but would love to be proved wrong, that there is some use/benefit to researching this!

Of course there are exceptions, I have seen many research projects and queried what's the point of doing that research!
 
I taught my Shetland to beg for a treat. As soon as he knew the signal he started to use it to beg for a scratch (he's VERY tactile!) and to beg me to open the gate in from the field (no food was ever waiting, he just wantd to come in). I think that ability to transfer learning to a different situation is a definite sign of intelligence.
 


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I also think they can switch off too and become more like zombies with the wrong environment. Someone coined a phrase for it a while ago but I forget what it is now.



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I think this is called "Frozen watchfullness" Where the horse behaves in a trance like, submissive manner to avoid punishment.
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I think horses power of recognition is amazing - daughter used to loan a little grey welsh that lives just round the corner. Said pony often stops mid munch and looks up at our car as we drive past, probably hopeful we'd stop. Another time we took her to a show, and someone unloaded a pony about 10 boxes away. Before the ramp was completely down she and the other pony were calling to each other - as a youngster some 5 years previously she'd shared a field with the other pony, and hadn't seen her since.
 
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[/ QUOTE ]
I also think they can switch off too and become more like zombies with the wrong environment. Someone coined a phrase for it a while ago but I forget what it is now.



[/ QUOTE ]

I think this is called "Frozen watchfullness" Where the horse behaves in a trance like, submissive manner to avoid punishment.
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i thought it was "'learned helplessness", lots of info about this on the web. interesting to consider its relevance to the use of rollkur and draw reins.

someone was doing a study years ago into equine intelligence and asked for horses to be volunteered, i wrote and offered the loan of my chestnut chap (the one i mentioned who seemed to analyse the situation and realise it wasn't worth popping over the electric because of the trouble he'd get into, having been warned!) but never heard back.
iirc they were going to build a large maze and video horses going through it, to see whether they learnt routes etc, problem solved, and so on.
i never heard any more about it though. maybe they selected dunces!
 
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