Proceedings

Oral presentation 4
Fearfulness and learning ability in young horses
J. Winther Christensen and L. Peerstrup Ahrendt
Aarhus University, Dept. Animal Science, Blichers Allé 20, 8830 Tjele, Denmark
jwc@anis.au.dk
Fear reactions in horses are relevant for both human safety and animal welfare. In addition,
fearfulness may interfere with learning due to frequent or prolonged glucocorticoid secretion as
well as attention deficits during training. This experiment was part of a larger project on the
development of fearfulness and learning ability in foals and the potential influence of variations in
maternal care. The aim of this subpart of the project was to investigate whether individual
performance correlated in a range of learning tests, targeting both positive and negative
reinforcement modalities, and similarly whether fear reactions correlated between fear tests,
indicating consistent temperamental traits. We further aimed to explore the association between
learning and fearfulness and the ability to habituate to frightening stimuli. Forty-four young
horses (male: 28, female: 16) from one stud were kept in mixed sex group boxes and tested at
10-12 months of age in four learning tests (visual discrimination; spatial reversal, clicker training
and a tactile negative reinforcement test), and at 12-14 months of age in two standardised fear
tests (novel object tests; NOT1 and NOT2) and a habituation test in which the horses habituated
to walking across plastic to reach a feed container in a gradual, voluntary set-up. Performance
was recorded as the number of test sessions required to meet the habituation criterion. In the
fear tests, behaviour (e.g. latency to pass the objects) and heart rate (HR) were measured.
Performance in the learning tests was evaluated as the number of correct choices, or the
number of sessions required to reach a pre-set learning criterion. There were strong positive
correlations between the two fear tests in both behavioural (latency to pass objects, r s =0.6,
p