Horses Ability to Hear Human Heart Rates

[LEC]

I attended a Jon Pitts seminar and it changed the way I do horses....

He told us on that day that horses can feel their riders heart rates through the saddle. He also explained how the research had been done and the most stressful time for riders was getting on. It made total sense that horses as flight animals were so sensitive to heart rates. Reseearch says horses can pick up a human heart rate 4ft away. An impressively long way away and one that has now started influencing my thinking in how I handle horses, not just ride them.

Knowing this information has changed the way I do everything. I am a pretty chilled experienced rider but I have made massive changes to the way I do things.

I ride some pretty sharp horses, so now if I feel my heart rate rising because they are getting beyond what I feel comfortable with, I get off. I will then lunge them. Get back on and see how my HR is. Everyone is calmer and I have fallen off a lot less and had a lot nicer horses when they are being idiots because they are not being pushed into anxiety. Plus I don't hold onto long term HR increases/spikes because last time it worried me when I rode them and they might do the same today.

I have spent a fair bit of time learning to calm myself at competitions if stressed and can now keep my HR pretty stable even if I am not feeling it. That way the horse is not being given additional anxiety on top of probably extra tension.

Instead of getting cross I think about regulating my HR to calm it before dealing with them. Especially out hacking. In situations I am worried about controlling (they are fairly few) I will get off. So a classic would be the other day tractor with large trailer, narrow space to pass on the road and a ditch. I would maybe get anxious about it so my HR would rise, now I get off. Whats the point in all of us having our HR raised? especially as mine tend to be reluctant to go past and not think about problem solving but avoiding. Leads to a much better experience for the horse.

Breaking in horses, now I know getting on elevates the HR of every single rider, I spend more effort longer than I used to of making them really good to get on. I am really strict about the process and how they behave. On day 1 of breaking they are taught to go next to a mounting block and stand correctly.

We know we are trying to ride flight animals - why are we not taught this information from day 1? Why do riding instructors never talk about it? Especially as they will often be dealing with nervous riders who will then be causing severe anxiety to their horse? Why are riders not taught to control their HR first? It would lead to better experiences for everyone? The biggest accidents I have seen with horses are those where the horses HR has spiked and the riders has spiked as well. Then it leads the horse to making really bad decisions.

 

[Lucky788]

Very interesting thank you for sharing. I always think horses are our mirrors and that links into that

 

[planete]

I knew horses were aware of my breathing but I had not thought of heart rate.

 

[ihatework]

I suppose it makes complete sense if you think about it. And what good horse (wo)men manage to do naturally.

 

[LEC]

I suppose it makes complete sense if you think about it. And what good horse (wo)men manage to do naturally.

We all joke about the cliche of the irish jockey who will ride anything but so much of why the horse responds will be relaxation and keeping a low HR even when the horses is spiking.

 

[LEC]

If anyone is interested this was the article
Jon Pitts – Fit to Ride – e-Venting (e-venting.co.uk)

Horses React to Human Heart Rates, Study Finds – The Horse - older study than I thought. Makes it even worse that its never discussed!

 

[ihatework]

We all joke about the cliche of the irish jockey who will ride anything but so much of why the horse responds will be relaxation and keeping a low HR even when the horses is spiking.

Nicholson sprung to my mind!

 

[milliepops]

I think really good or natural rider-instructors probably struggle to understand the impact this can have because they possibly don't get the same heartbeat spikes from an event happening. I am quite quick to get off my horses if my spidey senses start tingling these days, I am long past the "just battle on" stage and find it all stays much more positive and constructive if I'm not in the saddle when things are going sideways. I'm Ok with that, I'm well practiced at hopping on and off and keeping everyone's adrenalin down and that being a quicker way to achieve what I want. like you say it also avoids the long term effect that a horse can have on your mindset and physiology.

I have recently had a bit of a battle with my trainer over my horse that we are trying to teach to passage. she has struggled with the concept hugely and her go-to when she is stressing is to rear. I hate that, I don't mind her little hops but when she starts to stand up, i get very unhappy. when he rode her, she did the same, and he just sat there calmly and waited for her to come back to earth and then off they went again. objectively I can see that she looks after her own balance but it's something I can't get past. he said it didn't occur to him that he might fall off. Once you've had the thought that something bad might happen it's impossible to unthink that, but if you're so secure in your riding that it simply never enters your head, i guess it's very easy to ride through something without making it worse.

I sense that I am a bit untrainable in this respect now... though we had a good chat and he acknowledged what he describes as my lack of confidence, (though I see more as a wise sense of self preservation!) we will work around it, but it's sort of looming in the background i think i am definitely adding to the problem now because I'm more than happy to ride her dicking about the way she does, until it's in a lesson situation where I am certain that a heart rate monitor on me would pick up the stress of it before we've even started. bit unsure how to progress that one at the mo.

 

[paddi22]

I believe this 100%. I have bradycardia so my heart rate is between 40 and 50. I have always been able to settle and relax very hot horses. I (touch wood) never really have youngsters bucking or stressing when breaking. even if I'm feeling stress I can still calm them. If I'm going XC I have to drink a red bull to get my heart rate up to buzz some horses up a bit. I really struggle on cobs and Irish draughts though, or any colder blooded horses, I feel like I ride them really badly as I just can't seem to get a tune out of them at all!

 

[Kizzy2004]

My instructor always says to me “what goes on in the brain goes down the rein” whenever I’m having a bit of a wobble.

Someone also told me once that talking or singing if you feel yourself tensing or worrying helps to bring heart rate down.

 

[SEL]

I used to volunteer at a RS which did lessons for disabled children. Twice in a few months one of their really experienced horses stopped dead and refused to move with a particular child on board. First time we were all a bit confused and got the child off so we could check over the horse - child had a seizure 5 minutes later. Second time it happened we got the child off immediately and sure enough he had another seizure. Both times the carers with the child said it was unusual because he hadn't had a seizure for a while. The horse absolutely knew something was up.

I wear a fitbit which monitors my heart rate and it was quite obvious at what point we were on our pootle round the village last weekend when a load of bad mannered cyclists caused the horses to play up. It went from early 60s (my resting is around 55) into the 90s very quickly. I used to be pretty chilled about horse acrobatics, but I'm too old and too broken now. Its good to hear other people get off in that situation.

 

[BBP]

I attended a Jon Pitts seminar and it changed the way I do horses....

He told us on that day that horses can feel their riders heart rates through the saddle. He also explained how the research had been done and the most stressful time for riders was getting on. It made total sense that horses as flight animals were so sensitive to heart rates. Reseearch says horses can pick up a human heart rate 4ft away. An impressively long way away and one that has now started influencing my thinking in how I handle horses, not just ride them.

Knowing this information has changed the way I do everything. I am a pretty chilled experienced rider but I have made massive changes to the way I do things.

I ride some pretty sharp horses, so now if I feel my heart rate rising because they are getting beyond what I feel comfortable with, I get off. I will then lunge them. Get back on and see how my HR is. Everyone is calmer and I have fallen off a lot less and had a lot nicer horses when they are being idiots because they are not being pushed into anxiety. Plus I don't hold onto long term HR increases/spikes because last time it worried me when I rode them and they might do the same today.

I have spent a fair bit of time learning to calm myself at competitions if stressed and can now keep my HR pretty stable even if I am not feeling it. That way the horse is not being given additional anxiety on top of probably extra tension.

Instead of getting cross I think about regulating my HR to calm it before dealing with them. Especially out hacking. In situations I am worried about controlling (they are fairly few) I will get off. So a classic would be the other day tractor with large trailer, narrow space to pass on the road and a ditch. I would maybe get anxious about it so my HR would rise, now I get off. Whats the point in all of us having our HR raised? especially as mine tend to be reluctant to go past and not think about problem solving but avoiding. Leads to a much better experience for the horse.

Breaking in horses, now I know getting on elevates the HR of every single rider, I spend more effort longer than I used to of making them really good to get on. I am really strict about the process and how they behave. On day 1 of breaking they are taught to go next to a mounting block and stand correctly.

We know we are trying to ride flight animals - why are we not taught this information from day 1? Why do riding instructors never talk about it? Especially as they will often be dealing with nervous riders who will then be causing severe anxiety to their horse? Why are riders not taught to control their HR first? It would lead to better experiences for everyone? The biggest accidents I have seen with horses are those where the horses HR has spiked and the riders has spiked as well. Then it leads the horse to making really bad decisions.

I must be lucky because my instructor does talk about this stuff, it’s part and parcel of every lesson. Plus for me all this stuff is pretty common sense, I can pick up his. He can pick up mine. I think when you have a super hot reactive horse this stuff is more apparent. With a more cold blooded horse we perhaps miss just how much they pick up on as they don’t throw their emotions right out there.

 

[Nicnac]

Gosh that's fascinating and makes so much sense. I have had a professional riding my horses once or twice a week since September (one coming back into work due to rider injury and t'other coming back into work after horse injury). The first horse is extremely sharp and his go to was to either switch off and blank any instruction or rear. He has been an absolute saint as rider is extremely laid back and nothing fazes her.

 

[Keira 8888]

This is so interesting, thank you x

 

[thefarsideofthefield]

How many times have you heard it said of someone " Oh , he/she has an electric backside " ( meaning they wind horses up ) ? And then the opposite " He/she sends everything to sleep " ?

 

[Carrottom]

One of our pointers would always be a complete twit if my husband rode him on returning from the office. I'm sure this was because he had rushed home and mind and body were in work mode, including raised HR.

 

[PurBee]

I believe this 100%. I have bradycardia so my heart rate is between 40 and 50. I have always been able to settle and relax very hot horses. I (touch wood) never really have youngsters bucking or stressing when breaking. even if I'm feeling stress I can still calm them. If I'm going XC I have to drink a red bull to get my heart rate up to buzz some horses up a bit. I really struggle on cobs and Irish draughts though, or any colder blooded horses, I feel like I ride them really badly as I just can't seem to get a tune out of them at all!

youre lucky to have a naturally low heart rate in this context! Im the opposite, i have low blood pressure so my heart rate at rest is around 80 bpm. When im stressed i hit 100bpm quickly, and i feel the pulse in my skull and chest.

I noticed only since owning horses, they detect my heart rate. If they were in flight mode, i would instantly go there too...exacerbating their flight. A circular experience that isnt good around horses! Took a while for me to focus on chilling myself out, before dealing with the horses.
If im stressed and theyre chilled-out - they react to my stress, and being arabian blood, they show it too. So they show me ‘me’, as said ‘Mirroring me’.

That took ages, as initially im thinking ‘whats wrong with them?’ ....not realising they mirror me, my naturally ‘high alert high heart-rate’ state of being. I've had to really work on relaxing, as exercises on my own, away from horses. So that when with them i employ the techniques if stress occurs. I’m getting there!

My OH on the other hand, non-horsey...has a steady bpm of 60...no matter what! He doesnt get affected by flight stress peaks. So when there’s a horse ‘incident’ occurring, i call him to assist if im getting very high bpm spikes.

 

[smolmaus]

I notice this myself tbh. Not even riding, just moving the ponies about and round the yard, things go more smoothly with some people than others who are just more highly strung.

I go into steady mode when it's just me and the horses and usually have v few problems (not being self-congratulatory or anything, I don't know how or why it happens because I'm a nervous wreck a lot of the time otherwise). If I'm doing anything with someone else there, which is absolutely safer, the social anxiety can kick in and there's a noticeable difference in how smoothly things go, even if the other person is just standing minding the gate or something.

 

[Goldenstar]

Sky arrived here bad in traffic .
All you really have to do is monitor your own breathing and he’s fine he’s the second the horse I turned round who was like this .
So the finding of this study makes perfect sense to me .

 

[Errin Paddywack]

This makes so much sense. My sister came close to selling her gelding because he was being so spooky when she rode him to the point of being dangerous. Then she realised she was coming home from work stressed (and stressed at home) so was stressing him. Made a conscious effort to leave her stress at home and he improved hugely.

 

[NocturneNoel]

Very interesting, and makes a whole lot of sense. I wonder how rider fitness fits in with this, as in HR increase that isn't due to anxiety, but an unfit rider.

 

[PurBee]

I think really good or natural rider-instructors probably struggle to understand the impact this can have because they possibly don't get the same heartbeat spikes from an event happening. I am quite quick to get off my horses if my spidey senses start tingling these days, I am long past the "just battle on" stage and find it all stays much more positive and constructive if I'm not in the saddle when things are going sideways. I'm Ok with that, I'm well practiced at hopping on and off and keeping everyone's adrenalin down and that being a quicker way to achieve what I want. like you say it also avoids the long term effect that a horse can have on your mindset and physiology.

I have recently had a bit of a battle with my trainer over my horse that we are trying to teach to passage. she has struggled with the concept hugely and her go-to when she is stressing is to rear. I hate that, I don't mind her little hops but when she starts to stand up, i get very unhappy. when he rode her, she did the same, and he just sat there calmly and waited for her to come back to earth and then off they went again. objectively I can see that she looks after her own balance but it's something I can't get past. he said it didn't occur to him that he might fall off. Once you've had the thought that something bad might happen it's impossible to unthink that, but if you're so secure in your riding that it simply never enters your head, i guess it's very easy to ride through something without making it worse.

I sense that I am a bit untrainable in this respect now... though we had a good chat and he acknowledged what he describes as my lack of confidence, (though I see more as a wise sense of self preservation!) we will work around it, but it's sort of looming in the background i think i am definitely adding to the problem now because I'm more than happy to ride her dicking about the way she does, until it's in a lesson situation where I am certain that a heart rate monitor on me would pick up the stress of it before we've even started. bit unsure how to progress that one at the mo.

They say fear is the fear of fear.

i say, of course! Who wants to feel fearful?! Doh! Lol

i agree, its a level of self-preservation that’s hiked up and then affects our and horses behaviour.

Your trainer obviously doesnt imagine the worst, so rides ’fearlessly’ or ‘courageously’...i guess to get to that stage we have to be ‘ok’ with falling off.

Again, they say, ‘ when we embrace our fears, they disappear’....so your trainer probably hardly falls due to being absolutely fine with the idea of maybe falling off. Its a paradox, yet i know it works.

You might find ‘breathing exercises’ useful. The one that sticks with me is practicing long, slow, deep breaths. in through the nose, out through mouth. When we force ourselves to breathe this way it triggers the para-sympathetic nervous system, which is the nervous response to put the brakes on the ‘high stress’ flighty response.

A guy called Andrew Weil did a breathing series...it may be on youtube free. That really does help.

With any stress and hard beating heart my mind says ‘long, slow, deep breaths’...im so thankful it works and prevented jelly-leg incidents!

 

[ester]

So do they know what your normal heart rate is and react when it's elevated, but if yours is fast all the time do they react to that too?

Asking for a friend with a permanently high HR

 

[ycbm]

I think really good or natural rider-instructors probably struggle to understand the impact this can have because they possibly don't get the same heartbeat spikes from an event happening. I am quite quick to get off my horses if my spidey senses start tingling these days, I am long past the "just battle on" stage and find it all stays much more positive and constructive if I'm not in the saddle when things are going sideways. I'm Ok with that, I'm well practiced at hopping on and off and keeping everyone's adrenalin down and that being a quicker way to achieve what I want. like you say it also avoids the long term effect that a horse can have on your mindset and physiology.

I have recently had a bit of a battle with my trainer over my horse that we are trying to teach to passage. she has struggled with the concept hugely and her go-to when she is stressing is to rear. I hate that, I don't mind her little hops but when she starts to stand up, i get very unhappy. when he rode her, she did the same, and he just sat there calmly and waited for her to come back to earth and then off they went again. objectively I can see that she looks after her own balance but it's something I can't get past. he said it didn't occur to him that he might fall off. Once you've had the thought that something bad might happen it's impossible to unthink that, but if you're so secure in your riding that it simply never enters your head, i guess it's very easy to ride through something without making it worse.

I sense that I am a bit untrainable in this respect now... though we had a good chat and he acknowledged what he describes as my lack of confidence, (though I see more as a wise sense of self preservation!) we will work around it, but it's sort of looming in the background i think i am definitely adding to the problem now because I'm more than happy to ride her dicking about the way she does, until it's in a lesson situation where I am certain that a heart rate monitor on me would pick up the stress of it before we've even started. bit unsure how to progress that one at the mo.

Reminds me of the first time I sent a horse to be backed for me instead of doing it myself. I had just had another horse dump me violently several times, which turned out to be going blind and panicking, and I was setting this one off. Thankfully I realised it. I asked why the trainer, who was renowned for breaking sharp horses, never wore a body protector. He explained that he never wanted the idea in his head that he might need one.
.

 

[Snowfilly]

Probably explains how I can make every horse I ride scared of fire and smoke. I’ve got a real phobia about flames and normally spend bonfire season skittering sideways on hacks because the horses get spooked up. Put someone else on and they’re fine, but my heart’s hammering away and they pick it up.

 

[planete]

I do not think the laid-back trainer is not frightened of falling off. He/she does not believe they are likely to fall off because they can normally read the horse well enough to stop things escalating and they can stay calm themselves and instil calm in the horse.

 

[GinaGeo]

I’m finding this very interesting. For the last 13yrs I’ve had Natives or Native x TBs. They have their own versions of drama, but I know whole heartedly that any silliness isn’t serious. I completely trust them, laugh at them in scary situations and don’t think twice about riding in the dark, when there are fireworks etc etc. They trust me and I suspect my heart rate is pretty steady regardless.

I’ve done my four year old Anglo Arab from scratch. He is a much more reactive horse, you get far less thinking time. He comes down as quickly as he goes up and I truly believe that he is a brave horse, he is so much more trusting of me already. I did give myself a talking to about not riding him like a baby. If I’m blasé like I am on the other two he puts a brave face on. I’ve also had to teach myself to get off to avoid escalating a situation if he does have a moment. I never have to get off the others, but Pod requires a different approach.

I’ve turned him away for a bit now. I’m busy, and can’t keep him in enough work to keep on top of him. He’s making his own fun, and simple hacks out are more fun than they need to be. I don’t want something to happen and it get in my head.

In the meantime I need to work on controlling my heart rate ready for his return!

 

[Cloball]

Really interesting and something I feel I have known for a long time as I've always been a 'nervous' rider/ anxious human. I always try to breathe properly and lower my centre of gravity of things are getting antsy.

There have always been people who have told me I just need to 'work through it' or 'get on with it' and made me feel less capable for taking a step back to calm down or getting off leading past. I just don't see the point in creating carnage with half a ton of muscle.

It's reassuring to know you've had such good results from getting off and de-escalation techniques. It makes a whole lot more sense.

 

[Micropony]

This isn't research that I am familiar with, but it makes complete sense to me. I suspect there's more to it than heart rate though. I am convinced my horses have both been able to draw a clear distinction between situations when my heart rate is high through exertion rather than through anxiety. They respond differently to each stimulus. Maybe there are different cues in other aspects of my body (tension in the rein, leg, seat etc), or maybe they can smell something different. They can tell the difference on the ground as well as under saddle.

 

[Carrottom]

This isn't research that I am familiar with, but it makes complete sense to me. I suspect there's more to it than heart rate though. I am convinced my horses have both been able to draw a clear distinction between situations when my heart rate is high through exertion rather than through anxiety. They respond differently to each stimulus. Maybe there are different cues in other aspects of my body (tension in the rein, leg, seat etc), or maybe they can smell something different. They can tell the difference on the ground as well as under saddle.

I agree with this and would add that does anyone think that their horses react to what the the rider sees, for example, I was riding quietly down the hill on a very relaxed horse when my companion pointed out some cattle galloping down a bank on the other side of the valley.the moment I looked at them my boy tensed up and then looked across as if searching for danger.