How Smart Are Horses? This Research Breaks It Down

As horse owners, we’ve always known that our horses are smart, perceptive and tuned into our emotions. But others often ask, “How smart are horses, really?”

In the fall of 2016, I was gobsmacked by research out of Norway indicating horses could be trained to use symbols to communicate to their handlers, “put blanket on” and “take blanket off.” This seemed to indicate horses may have cognitive processes considerably beyond what we normally ascribe to them.

Intrigued, I began keeping track of other recent research into equine intelligence. And what I learned about how smart horses can be was astonishing.

[READ: Horse Whorl Patterns Determine Temperaments]

Whereas just 15 years ago scientists were still questioning whether horses (and other mammals) even experience emotions, research now seems to indicate equines may in fact have some of the same cognitive abilities as we do, only at a different level.

Here, I’m going to share the latest research into equine cognition, including details of that compelling blanket-on/-off study. What you’ll learn may amaze you. More importantly, it may help you better understand how to relate to your horse, bond with him, even train him.

First, a quick look at how the study of animal intelligence has evolved.

From Then to Now

You might say we’ve come a long way, baby. René Descartes, the 17th-century French philosopher, believed animals were mindless machines that could neither reason nor feel pain. The work of the Russian Ivan Pavlov in the 19th century and American B. F. Skinner in the early 20th portrayed animals as merely reacting reflexively to their environment. Or, behaving only in response to positive or negative reinforcement.

In fact, until only fairly recently, “anyone who ascribed an underlying emotion to an animal’s behavior was simply being anthropomorphic, projecting human feelings onto what were merely ‘dumb animals,’” observes Dr. Nicholas H. Dodman, a veterinary behaviorist writing in Veterinary Practice News online. “The extreme behaviorist’s view that animals’ behavior is to be observed and measured but not interpreted prevailed through much of the last century.”

Equine Emotions

Today, it’s generally accepted that animals do indeed experience primary emotions. At least fear, anger, rage, surprise, joy, and disgust. Now the controversy swirls around whether they can have secondary emotions, as well. Secondary emotions—such as embarrassment, shame, guilt, and jealousy—are more complicated and tend to arise less rapidly.

Dodman says secondary emotions “require greater cognitive ability and acceptance that animals have ‘theory of mind,’” a concept that “implies self-awareness and the ability to understand that other individuals may possess information and agendas that are different from one’s own.”

In Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?, ethologist Frans de Waal argues that theory of mind—“the ability to grasp the mental states of others”—has more to do with body reading than mind reading. “It allows us to look at a situation from the viewpoint of another, which is why I prefer the term perspective taking,” he writes.

We now know beyond doubt that horses are superb body-readers. Might this suggest they possess some degree of the theory of mind?

Current research seems to point in that direction, and toward a surprising range of cognitive abilities in general.

Let’s take a look.

The Recent Studies on the Intelligence of a Horse

Blanket / No Blanket Study

In this 2016 study, Norwegian researchers trained 22 horses representing various breeds to understand symbols painted on white wooden boards. The symbol on one board meant “put blanket on.” On another, “take blanket off.” A blank board meant “no change.”

The researchers first trained the horses to touch the boards with their muzzles. Then they taught them to associate each symbol with the action it represented—put blanket on, take it off, or no change. The horses were also taught they could make a choice, and that there was no wrong answer—critically important for getting them to participate freely.

Then, under varying weather conditions, the horses were asked to select which action they wanted…and here’s where it got really interesting.

Can your horse request that you take his blanket off? This study indicates that he can.

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On one warm, sunny day, 10 of 22 horses were already wearing blankets, and when asked to choose, all 10 chose the “blanket off” symbol. On a 45-degree day, 10 of the horses already wearing blankets selected “no change.” Not only that but of the 12 horses not wearing blankets that day, 10 selected the “blanket on” option.

An eye-opening result—especially for owners who’ve often wondered whether their horse actually wants a blanket or not. What might it mean for the possibility of additional communication of this type going forward? Only more research will tell us.

Using a Touch Screen

In this 2015 study, researchers in Japan used 42-inch LCD touch-screen computer monitors—a system they’d previously used with chimpanzees—to test three ponies’ abilities to discriminate shapes and sizes.

When a pony placed his muzzle on the size or shape he’d previously been trained to recognize, he heard a signal, and a treat was automatically dispensed into a bowl under the screen.

For the sake of comparison, humans and chimpanzees also participated in the experiment, and researchers found the ponies performed about as well as the chimps and humans did in discriminating shape differences.

One special significance of this work is that it demonstrates a way to test horses without the risk of human influence in the results—the so-called “Clever Hans” effect. In the early 1800s, Clever Hans was a horse that appeared to be able to do simple math.