Are racehorses happy? Hawke’s Bay professor leads study on mental welfare of thoroughbreds

EIT executive dean Professor Nat Waran is figuring out how happy racehorses actually are.

Do thoroughbred racehorses enjoy their lives? That’s the question Hawke’s Bay’s Professor Nat Waran hopes to definitively answer.

Waran, EIT Te Pūkenga’s executive dean, is an internationally recognised expert on equine behaviour and welfare.

Her new three-year project will involve working with researchers from Australia and the UK to look into how racehorses express positive emotions in their interactions with humans.

“We have seen rising societal concerns about the use and treatment of animals across a range of industries, and this is especially the case where animals are involved in sport, such as in the thoroughbred racing industry’,” Waran said.

The study is set to address welfare concerns in the racing industry, a sector which Waran said is committed to ensuring equine welfare is a strategic priority.

“This means that we need to know a lot more about how racehorses feel about their life experiences on and off the track, and how coping with the living, travelling and working environment impacts upon their welfare.”

She said in order to properly assess a horse’s welfare, there was a need to develop tools that provide information about not just negative emotions, such as fear or stress, but also positive ones such as pleasure and contentment.

Substantial funding for the study has come from the Hong Kong Jockey Club (HKJC) Equine Welfare Foundation. It said it was committed to improving racehorses’ quality of life through research and applying the knowledge that research yields.

Professor of Equine Science at Charles Sturt University in Australia, Hayley Randle, said it was important that the cumulative effect of a horse’s experiences was now being recognised, from birth to retirement.

“People are taking horses’ mental welfare much more seriously than ever before.”

This type of research has been a long-standing passion for Waran.

She was appointed last year by the Fédération Equestre Internationale (FEI), the world governing body for horse sport, to chair the Independent Equine Ethics and Wellbeing Commission.

A trip to Switzerland saw her present to the FEI Sports Forum on the Commission’s proposed vision, and draft recommendations on the current and future societal concerns related to the ethics and welfare of horse use in sport.

Waran has also been invited to present to both the New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing Welfare Forum at the end of May in Cambridge and the New Zealand Equestrian Sports members’ forum in Christchurch in July.