Seeing Eye to Eye with Horses
We have to learn about and accept the way horses see the world and work with it, since a horse’s vision is determined by centuries of equine evolution.
To a horse, one look at the human face and the equine brain knows we are predators. When trying to calm a horse, look away or walk backwards while speaking quietly. Horses do not like to be stared at by 4 “predators” while loading into a trailer. If the horse is needing to be reprimanded then a human’s stink-eye and a verbal reminder is the equivalent to pinned ears.
Equine vision is different from human vision in many ways, including acuity, eye contact, range, detection of peripheral motion as examples.
Guess who is more objective in seeing reality? You or your horse? The horse’s brain is less prone to illusions and assumptions. Therefore Your Horse is probably more objective in seeing reality.
By understanding how your horse’s vision differs from yours, you can develop training techniques that work with the horse’s visual system rather than against. This helps you to gain your horse’s trust and shape your horse’s performance.
FOCUS:
Equine eyes are larger than any other land mammal and 8x larger than humans. A horse has to be 50% closer to see the same details as you. What you can see at 30 feet, your horse can only see at 20 feet. Acuity is seeing the difference between an “f” and an “l” for example. Focusing on something in the center of the visual field and discriminating fine detail is considerably worse than ours. About 23% of horses are nearsighted, which means they do not see details clearly until they get close to an object. 43% of horses are farsighted, can make out details only as they get father from a object. Therefore, slightly farsighted horses are more likely to excel in disciplines like jumping. Imagine galloping 30 feet per second towards a blurry, dim, flat, vague oxer, you would be nervous about that too. The best acuity in horses occurs around the age of 7 and then begins to decay. Standardbreds and Thoroughbreds have better acuity with long convex noses than Arabians that have short concave noses.
POINT OF VIEW:
Human eyes point forward and are smaller than a horse. Horse eyes are located on the sides of the head. The position of the eyes makes a profound difference in the way people and horses dictate visual range, depth perception, peripheral motion detection.
Human vision is limited to approximately 45 degrees on either side for a total of about 90 degrees. By contrast a horse has a 350 degree view. Imagine processing 4x as much at one time every second of the day. It explains why horses seem to be edgy at times.
Horses cannot see a person standing directly behind him. Another blind spot is eye level to the ground below his nose and extending out about six feet. A horse cannot see the grass he grazes on, the bit he accepts, the fingers that stroke his muzzle. It is a sensory disadvantage to shave a horse’s whiskers as these are meant to sense these objects.
A horse can see the tractor behind your shoulder that you probably cannot see. Balloons bobbing appear to be the equivalent of a ball soaring straight toward a horse’s face. Yellow is a very bright color to a horse.
NOTE: Vision is poor above and below the horse’s eyes.
Fear is in the eye of the beholder. For example if there is a sliver of light in the sand, that the horse thinks is a snake and the rider is forcing the horse forward towards this sliver of light, then the horse reluctantly approaches the sliver of light and it vanishes from view, then the horse freaks. The rider with forward facing eyes, assumes that positioning a horse for a frontal view is best for all.
One of the most common mistakes riders make when dealing with a nervous horse is to thwart their side view.
Start with some ground work.
Leading her to the sliver of light but if she balks, don’t push.
Allow the horse to move in circles at the closest distance that he feels safe.
Let the horse watch a familiar human friend walk up the object.
Have a familiar person to stand next to the light and speak calmly.
This will help the horse understand that a threat does not exist.