A major part of why Equine Facilitated Learning is so effective is the horse’s ability to sense the authentic emotional state of a person. Horses will act as mirrors, subtly reflecting back messages about their human partner.

The behaviour of your horse will change along with yours and will be affected by your mood and feelings.

Now recent research shows that not only can your horse sense your emotions they can also read expressions from photos and will react accordingly.

The University of Sussex showed several horses photographs of angry and happy people in a recent study. Later, the individuals from the photos presented themselves to the horses in a neutral state.

The horses responded more positively to those who were happy in their photos and were cautious of those who appeared angry in their photos.

These conclusions show that horses are keen observers of human emotional states and will alter how they interact based on their memories of particular individuals.

This exciting field is expanding more and more as the research continues to mount in favour of horses being excellent therapists with a special kind of horse wisdom that can touch us all!

Reference:

Leanne Proops, Kate Grounds, Amy Victoria Smith, Karen McComb,
Animals Remember Previous Facial Expressions that Specific Humans Have Exhibited,
Current Biology,
Volume 28, Issue 9,
2018,
Pages 1428-1432.e4,
ISSN 0960-9822,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2018.03.035.
(http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982218303646)