// HACKER NEWS — CYBERSECURITY
How we manage and engage with our horses shapes their personality
A new study reveals that horse personality is not only a matter of genetics, age, or breed but also systematically linked to how horses are housed, ridden, and cared for, and to the quality of the relationship they share with their owners. The findings underscore the importance of everyday management decisions for equine personality and welfare.
Horse personality has long been known to influence welfare, training outcomes, and the quality of human–horse interactions. While genetic and biological factors clearly play a role, far less has been known about how the human-shaped environment may contribute to building horse personality.
"Personality is not something that develops independently of its surroundings. Horses live in environments we create and relationships we build for them, and our results show that these matter," says lead author of the study, Postdoctoral Researcher Océane Liehrmann from the University of Turku, Finland, and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.
The research group conducted an international online survey during 2023–2024, gathering responses from 2,257 horse owners of about 2,767 horses across Europe, North America, and beyond. Owners rated their horses' personalities using a 52-item questionnaire and provided detailed information about housing conditions, riding and groundwork frequency, quality time with their horses, headgear use, ownership history, and relationship duration.
Statistical analyses of the data revealed four distinct personality dimensions:
As expected, intrinsic factors such as age, sex, and breed were among the strongest drivers of personality scores. Warmbloods, for example, scored highest in Neuroticism, while draft horses scored lowest. Geldings consistently scored higher than mares in both Human Sociability and Attentiveness.
The length and stability of the relationship were linked to Human Sociability: horses with the same owner for over ten years scored about 12 percent higher than those together less than a year, while horses that had passed through multiple owners scored lower than those bought directly from a breeder.
"These patterns suggest that familiarity and relational continuity contribute to how openly and comfortably horses engage with people. Frequent changes of owner or stable may leave a lasting mark on a horse's willingness to seek human contact," explains Liehrmann.
Owners who often spent unstructured time with their horses, being present, offering scratches, and not demanding anything from them, had horses that scored higher on Human Sociability. Riding frequency, then again, was tied to calmness: horses ridden 4–7 times a week scored higher on Attentiveness and lower on Neuroticism, while rarely ridden horses scored higher on Neuroticism. This possibly reflects habituation from regular training, or that calmer horses are simply chosen for regular use.
One of the clearest findings concerned Horse Sociability: horses housed alone consistently scored lower than those living with other horses, regardless of whether they lived in pairs or full herds.