Research Says Foals Need a Break from Training
The headline caught my attention because as a breeder I work with foals regularly. The headline said foals need a break every once in a while from training. I pride myself on paying close attention to how my foals react to training, noting what they understand and don’t and what they find stressful and don’t. I looked forward to learning what the research behind the headline said.
Researchers in Australia and New Zealand worked with twenty Thoroughbred foals 8 weeks of age and younger. They found that the foals exhibited stress responses more often when they were worked daily versus when they were given a day off every two days. (1) This finding made me cock my head with surprise. This pattern wasn’t one I’d ever witnessed when working with the more than two dozen foals that I’ve shared life with, so I needed to learn more.
The research was specifically about halter and leading training, and the stress response that was noted was biting the handlers. “[Foals] under 8 weeks of age showed a remarkable increase in biting during the fourth consecutive day of training…. Study foals that were older than 8 weeks did not show an increase in biting behavior, even on the fourth consecutive day of training.” This information still wasn’t within my range of experience working with pony foals.
Then I found something I personally found alarming. The training sessions for these youngsters were up to 25 minutes long. Really? In my opinion, you would ruin a Fell Pony foal’s mind working with them for that long at that age. I usually wait until they are two year olds before I ask for that prolonged focus on a regular basis. No wonder, in my opinion, the handlers were getting bit. Before my foals are a year old, if I work with them for more than five minutes at a time, it’s unusual unless I’m trimming hooves. It just isn’t necessary nor productive, in my opinion. And I’m not alone. I have colleagues who train ponies who use similar approaches. It’s no wonder, from my perspective, that the researchers found the foals needed a break from that training regimen.
I agree that foals need breaks from training. For instance, once mine have basic leading, yielding, and foot handling skills, usually by about 3 weeks of age, I quit working them daily until they are 3 months old. I might occasionally give them a quick refresher, but I haven’t found it necessary nor productive to continue daily work. Repetition has its place, but it can also be overdone with ponies, in my experience. I do agree that as foals get older, they can handle longer and more frequent training sessions.
I also found the use by the researchers of biting behavior as indicative of a stress response to be potentially problematic. I agree that biting can occur as a stress response, but I’ve also experienced it as a playful act. It is common for foals to bite each other when they are frisky or when they’re being aggressive with a herd mate. And foals may also respond to being scratched by people in favorite places by returning the grooming favor by nibbling as they would with another pony unless trained to do otherwise. The article I read was a summary of the research, so I wasn’t able to review the research in depth to understand how these nuances in biting behavior were addressed.
I have never worked with a Thoroughbred, much less a foal of that breed, so I don’t know whether they can handle longer training sessions at younger ages than ponies can. However, this research is important for all of us who train foals. It reminds us to make sure we pay attention to stress responses in our charges, no matter how they manifest, and that we time our training sessions to keep stress to a minimum.
Lesté-Lasserre, Christa. “Researchers: Young Foals in Halter Training Need Frequent Days Off,” thehorse.com, article #181488, 11/14/19.