BODY POSITION AND DIRECTION PREFERENCES IN HORSES DURING ROAD TRANSPORT

It has been hypothesised that horses have a preference for facing back ward in a trailer during road transport in order to minimise shifts of body weight due to accelerations and decelerations. To determine if h orses have preferences for facing forward vs. backward in a horse trai ler, the authors analysed the percentages of time horses spent in diff erent body positions and directions while standing in a moving or park ed horse trailer. Body positions and directions of 8 Thoroughbred geld ings were videotaped while horses were transported singly and untether ed in a 4-horse stock trailer over a 32 km route of country roads; or while the same horses were untethered in the same trailer stationary i n a parking lot. Analysis of the logit-transformed percentages of time horses spent in different directions indicated that they spent signif icantly more time facing backward when the trailer was in motion, but not when it was parked. Several horses displayed strong individual pre ferences for the directions they faced during road transport.