What is a happy horse? What measures do we have to gauge happiness or unhappiness in a horse?

Everybody I know would consider an important aspect of their work with their horse is the desire to have a happy horse. Not a slave, not an employee, not a robot. People talk about partnership and willingness. They want a horse that is happy to work with them.

But nobody I know has an objective gauge of ‘happiness’ in a horse.

I’ve been told that straightness and balance are a sign of happiness because it takes happiness for a horse to carry itself correctly. What?? Does that mean that every horse grazing in a paddock is unhappy? Does that mean when a horse leaves the arena and there is no rider applying the inside leg to outside rein to keep him straight that a horse’s emotions change from happy to unhappy? Why do so many horses competing in Grand Prix dressage display straightness in their work and misery in the way they feel about their work?

I’ve been told that a sign of a happy horse is when it approaches the handler to be caught. How can you be sure? What if it’s a learned pattern and emotions or decisions play no part in the response? How can you know?

Some people have pointed out to me that some high-level liberty work is an indication of a horse being happy in their work. The rationale being that at liberty a horse has the option of running away if it is unhappy. Maybe it is happy. But maybe it feels enslaved and trapped in the relationship. How can we know?

I believe emotional happiness is not one thing. I believe in a very broad range of happiness that every animal with a sophisticated brain possesses. But there is no such thing as a ‘happy horse’. What is a happy horse with one experience can be an unhappy horse with the next experience.

A day, every day, is filled with thousands of experiences. Every few seconds is dominated by a different experience and every new experience moves the horse along the scale of happiness.

Let’s consider my friend, Fluffy. It’s hot. Fluffy is unhappy, so Fluffy seeks the shade of the tree. Fluffy feels happier in the shade. Then a breeze picks up and Fluffy is a little more happy. Fluffy feels ants crawling on his legs, and Fluffy’s happiness scale moves again. Then the herd bully approaches and Fluffy's happiness plummets, until the bully starts to scratch Fluffy’s wither and now Fluffy is happier. Fluffy’s day is full of these experiences. And it gets even more complicated when we add a rider and some training. Every step, every change in feel, every interruption of thought, etc will shift Fluffy’s level of happiness along the scale. It is constantly shifting.

If you are looking to me for answers regarding horses and happiness, I’m sorry to disappoint you. I don’t have any magical insight into understanding a horse’s happiness. I don’t believe I even know what it is. Maybe happiness is not even a real thing that horses experience. Horses are discomfort avoiders (as opposed to comfort seekers) so perhaps instead of a happiness scale, they exist on a misery scale and the best we can hope for is to help our horses experience less misery. I don’t know, but maybe.

I am pretty confident a horse’s experience of happiness is very different from my own experience. This puts me at a huge disadvantage when it comes to understanding my horse’s happiness in the training process. In the meantime, I’ll keep looking for the little signs that my horses might find comfort in my presence in their life. And I’ll try to avoid the trap of believing in their happiness because I want to believe it.

If some of you have a better insight into the concept of a horse’s happiness and how we can gauge it, please share.