How to spot a horse in pain

Vets are usually familiar with the telltale signs, but for owners it can be a real challenge to differentiate between pain and bad behaviour. 'Riders can sometimes miss that a horse might have a physical problem, which is compromising his performance,' explains Sue. 'They often think there has to be reason why a horse is unwilling to do a certain thing - that he is being grumpy or that they are not giving the correct signal. Pain is often the last thing people think about.' Sue has designed an equine ethogram - a catalogue of behaviours - that allows owners, riders and trainers to gain an insight into a horse's health immediately, just by looking at him.

How the ethogram works

Sue looked at hundreds of photographs of horses' faces and, in collaboration with colleagues and animal behaviour experts, designed a pain score for each part of the face. Ear position, for example, was given a score from zero to three. Both ears forwards was associated with no pain and given a zero, while both ears back was associated with pain so it scored a three. 'We did the same for the eyes, mouth and head position,' explains Sue.

After testing the ethogram, to ensure that it worked, with both equine professionals and non-professional horse owners, the next stage involved asking a trained assessor to study photographs of healthy and lame horses to see if they could differentiate between the two based on their facial expressions. 'Statistical analysis showed that there were significant differences,' says Sue.

At the same time, a small number of the lame horses were tested before and after nerve-blocking, to ascertain whether removing their pain made a difference to their facial expressions.

'We found that the pain scores were substantially reduced after the pain had stopped,' she adds.

Next, Sue developed a whole horse ethogram, which looked at all aspects of the horse's behaviour when it was being ridden. The results were very clear.

'We looked at 117 different behaviours and found 24 that were 10 times more likely to be seen in lame horses' explains Sue, who concluded that the presence of eight or more of these 24 behaviours was 'highly likely to reflect the presence of pain'.

'People say, "He has always done that", but now vets can reply, for example: "Yes, he has scored eight or more and is therefore likely to have been in musculoskeletal pain since you've owned him",' she says.

More information on the ethogram can be found on the Animal Health Trust website [www.aht.org.uk].

Does your horse have pain written all over his face?

Different horses react differently to pain, so it is impossible to say that a particular behaviour points toward a certain health issue. There are, however, some telltale behaviours that could be indicative of a specific problem. Study him closely and you may find clues.

What should you do if you suspect your horse may be in pain?

'Monitor him carefully,' suggests Gil. 'And ask yourself: have there been any recent changes to his management, equipment or workload? Has he recently been shod? Keep a diary and relay your concerns to your vet.'

Sue concludes: 'The sooner pain and lameness are detected and diagnosed, the better the prognosis as you are limiting the damage.'