Something is shifting in stable aisles, at riding schools, and around the trotting tracks and racecourses of Sweden and the wider world.
Something is shifting in stable aisles, at riding schools, and around the trotting tracks and racecourses of Sweden and the wider world. How the horse actually fares has moved from a niche concern to one of the most charged questions in the whole equine industry. Even so, researchers still find that a coherent, shared framework for thinking about welfare in international horse sport is missing – for all the veterinary research that now exists, and for all that several international governing bodies have their own welfare departments or programmes.
The most widely used framework for judging animal welfare, the Five Freedoms, was first developed for farm animals and comes from the Brambell Report of 1965 (the United Kingdom inquiry into livestock husbandry). It was formalised in 1979 by the British Farm Animal Welfare Council, and still rests on five principles that research and practice use as the starting point when they ask how a horse is doing.
Applied to horses, the freedoms split in practice by how hard they are to meet. Some, such as freedom from hunger and thirst, are relatively basic requirements that ought to be achievable without great difficulty in the developed world. Others, such as freedom to express natural behaviour, are far harder to live up to for a domesticated competition or companion horse.
Feed is a particular challenge. Horses evolved as trickle feeders – built to chew, or to occupy themselves with forage, for most of the day (16–18 hours). Free-living horses spend around 60 per cent of their time eating, compared with competition horses in individual boxes, which spend only about 15 per cent of their time eating – a gap with direct welfare consequences.
In recent years research has moved on from merely avoiding suffering to asking what makes a good life. The newer Five Domains framework builds on that shift. It explains that nutrition, the physical environment, health and behavioural interactions together shape the horse's mental well-being, and is often taken to set a higher bar than the Five Freedoms, because it asks that animals should thrive and have positive experiences rather than merely survive.
Despite growing awareness, research shows that the tension between the demands of competition and the horse's needs remains a central challenge. A British focus-group study of people in horse sport found that this conflict was identified as a key welfare issue, and that horses' psychological needs are sometimes overlooked even when the physical health of competition horses is closely monitored. Participants also argued that better everyday handling and training of horses would likely make a greater difference than competition rules alone.
Horse welfare is at a turning point. Science, regulation and public expectation are moving in the same direction, while practice often lags behind. That gap leaves room for tools and platforms that help owners, trainers and organisations turn research into concrete, measurable everyday practice.
At Hästannons we believe welfare and responsible ownership belong together – whether you buy, sell, breed or ride. Read on in the series, and in our practical guides.
The Five Freedoms are an international framework for animal welfare, set out in the Brambell Report of 1965 and formalised by the British Farm Animal Welfare Council in 1979. The framework describes five basic needs a horse should meet – from access to feed and water to security, veterinary care, natural behaviour and protection from unnecessary fear. It is still one of the most common starting points when research and practice judge horse-keeping, even though newer frameworks such as the Five Domains also stress positive experiences.
The horse should have enough feed and clean water. In practice that means forage and water available so the horse can eat and drink at a pace that suits the species – not only at set feeding times.
The horse should have a suitable, safe environment: a decent place to lie, shelter, and room to move. It is about the stable, the paddock, ventilation, lying surfaces, and avoiding places that are too cramped, dirty, wet or exposed.
Ill health should be prevented, and the horse should be treated when it is sick or injured. That includes regular health care, prompt treatment after injury or illness, and not subjecting the horse to tack, handling or training that causes unnecessary pain.
The horse should be able to move, graze, socialise and behave as its species does. Horses are social grazing animals that need movement, contact with other horses, and the chance to eat through the day – not only short spells in a box, or solitude.
The horse should be handled so that it feels secure, and not exposed to unnecessary fear or stress. That applies to handling, training, transport and everyday life in the yard – horses that feel safe cooperate better and fare better over time.
A newer framework that stresses nutrition, the physical environment, health and behaviour – and how they together shape the horse's mental well-being, with the focus on the horse thriving, not merely avoiding suffering.
Science, regulation and public expectation are moving in the same direction, while practice often lags behind – which creates a need for clear, research-based knowledge.