Dr Rachel Murray is co-author of a new research study which has found that noise-damping ear covers appear to reduce the responsiveness of competition horses to some sounds, although responses varied depending on the sounds heard.
Sport horses are required to perform without distraction by external, irrelevant sounds. To help achieve this, noise-damping ear covers have been developed. However, their effectiveness has not been established and the researchers noted that despite many studies investigating responses to visual perception, there is limited research into how horses respond to different sounds.
The study team comprised Clare Hole (University of Cambridge), Dr Rachel Murray (Rossdales), Dr David Marlin (AnimalWeb Ltd, Cambridge) and Paul Freeman (University of Cambridge). They said auditory perception is a key driver of behavioural and physiological responses in horses. The study team set out investigate the responses of horses to different sounds commonly present in a competition environment and compare these responses in the presence and absence of ear covers.
A difference in both physiological and behavioural responses to different auditory stimuli was found, with and without ear covers, suggesting an ability of horses to discriminate the sounds and alter responses based on the individual stimulus.
The authors said an overall decrease in behavioural and heart rate responses with ear covers on suggests that the ear covers do have an impact on reducing noise detection by horses. “Therefore, wearing ear covers could potentially reduce stress, or improve the focus and attention of a horse on its rider in a training, competition, or prize-giving environment.”
While it may be optimal to remove potential sound stressors from a horse’s environment, this may be difficult to achieve in an uncontrolled environment, where there could be a potential benefit to using ear covers to reduce stress.
The study team suggests this information can be used to predict responses of sport horses, enhancing management and optimisation of performance while improving horse welfare.
You can read the full research paper, which is open access, here.