Conflict Behaviour Frequency During Show Jumping Competitions: A Practical Study

With society's ever-growing concern for animal welfare, the equestrian industry has focused on passing and enforcing new rules to protect the main athlete, the horse. In jumping, courses go by quickly, with judges using the occurrence of conflict behaviours to assess any welfare breach. This study aimed to evaluate the overall frequency of such behaviours in Brazilian Sport Horses during elite show jumping competitions in Brazil. Conflict behaviour displays were analyzed in 120 different horse-rider pairs in jumping competitions in Brazil. All videos were observed at a slowed-down speed, with the frequency of behaviours being recorded. The observed behaviours included head shaking, tail swishing, neck hyperflexion, excessive pulling on the reins, kicking, bucking, rearing, and disobedience. All horses (100%) presented at least one type of conflict behaviour, with head shaking (100%, n = 120, IQR 3-7, range 1-18) being the most common one (p < 0.001) and tail swishing (45.83%, n = 55, IQR 1-10, range 1-29) being the second most common (p < 0.001). Most horses showed only one (41.67%, n = 50) or two (43.33%, n = 52) different types of behaviours, with few episodes of each throughout the course. Those findings were in line with studies in other disciplines, as the competition environment offers a series of challenging and stressful situations. The low levels of conflict observed in most horses indicate that the current horse welfare rules are working and must continue to be reinforced to consistently protect the horses.