14/05/2026
Naaaw...
A recently published paper by A.B. Kovács, J. Topál, and A. Gergely asks whether horses bond with a specific rider?
To find out, the authors adapted Ainsworth's Strange Situation Test, a well-known psychological tool originally developed to study emotional attachment between infants and caregivers (and later applied to dogs) — and used it for the first time on horses in a setting without other horses present.
Thirty horse-rider pairs took part in the experiment, which was conducted in familiar indoor arenas at the horses' home stables.
Each pair had been working together exclusively for at least six months.
The test unfolded across six episodes: the rider called the horse, then an unfamiliar experimenter did the same, followed by a separation where the horse was left alone, two reunion phases where both the rider and experimenter re-entered together, and finally a mildly frightening scenario involving a noisy, decorated object moved by a remote string.
The results showed that horses consistently approached their own rider faster and spent more time close to them across most episodes, pointing clearly to a partner-specific preference.
When both the rider and experimenter returned after the separation, horses typically oriented toward their rider first.
However, interestingly, the horses' gazing behaviour told a different story — it followed whichever human was most active or interactive in the moment, rather than gravitating toward the familiar rider.
During the scary object episode, horses moved away from the threat rather than toward either human, suggesting that as prey animals, their natural instinct to flee overrides any impulse to seek comfort from a person when genuinely alarmed.
Rider s*x also had no meaningful effect on any of the results.
The authors conclude that horses do form genuine, partner-specific bonds with their riders, reflected most clearly in how quickly and consistently they seek proximity.
They argue that approach latency and proximity duration are the most reliable indicators of this bond, while gaze and vocalizations are better understood as responses to context and arousal.
The study is the first to successfully run an attachment-style paradigm with horses in isolation, something previously thought impractical, made possible by working with sport horses accustomed to brief separations during training and competition.
Full study available here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0737080626000894
