Horses are smart enough to plan and strategise, new study shows

The study involved 20 horses, who first were rewarded with a treat for touching a piece of card with their nose.

In the second stage, a “stop light” was introduced, and the rule was changed so that the reward was only given if they touched the card while the light was off.

This did not alter the behaviour of the horses, as they were observed touching the card regardless of the status of the light. That is, until the rules changed for a third time.

In the final stage, researchers introduced a penalty of a 10-second timeout for touching the card while the stop light was on.

The team observed a rapid adjustment to the horses’ behaviour now there was a cost to getting it wrong, all of them quickly learning to play by the rules to avoid the timeout, researchers said.

“We were expecting horses’ performance to improve when we introduced the time-out, but were surprised by how immediate and significant the improvement was,” lead researcher Louise Evans said.

The researchers believe the fact the horses adapted so quickly indicates they understood the rule of the stop light the entire time, but had no reason to follow the rule when there was no consequence for getting it wrong.

The study, published in the Applied Animal Behaviour Science journal, external shows that horses are more cognitively advanced than they are given credit for, Dr Carrie Ijichi, a senior equine researcher at NTU said.

“This teaches us that we shouldn’t make assumptions about animal intelligence or sentience based on whether they are ‘built’ just like us,” she said.