Relationship between anatomical characteristics and personality traits in Lipizzan horses.

ABSTRACT: We tested 35 Lipizzan horses older than 5 years, ridden and healthy in three behavioural tests (handling, fear-reaction, and target training test). Physiological (heart rate and heart rate variability) and anatomical measurements (120 head and body distances and angles) were collected to validate parameters that reliably inform on handling/cooperation, fear/exploration and trainability in horses. Utilizing a standard clustering methodology on the behavioural data, we identified four general types of responses and categorised an individual as intermediate, low fearful, horses with low cooperation or low trainability. We additionally analysed the head morphology following Tellington-Jones and Taylor recommendations and correlated the measurements with data from a horse personality questionna

SUBMITTER: Debeljak N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9308772 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature