As a former special education teacher with a lot of experience in cognitive assessment, plus 25+ years of adult horse experience, my answer to the question is--a guarded yes. Add to that the caveat that "not all horses" are capable of such thinking. There is a range of intelligence in horses just like there is in humans.
Much of this planning and strategizing is going to be based on things important *to the horse*, not necessarily to the human. A horse that has specific toileting areas will do so for reasons important to the horse--either limiting pasture areas fouled by poop in order to have clean eating spaces, or else (in the case of stallions and some geldings) territorial marking. Motivation for these purposes will differ from horse to horse--a mare is not necessarily going to be interested in territorial marking, and we all know male horses who don't care about territorial marking or keeping things clean.
Acquisition of a desired treat is going to be much more of a common motivation. I have two rather intelligent horses who are both extremely food-motivated, the gelding more than the mare (he has experienced food deprivation in the past where she has not). The mare is a retired reining horse and has demonstrated the ability to retain complex patterns in her memory, including anticipating flying change requests in one exercise where the change is requested after a certain number of small squares in one direction (reliably up to seven squares, inconsistent after that). As part of a bonding exercise between her and the gelding as well as easing the transition from work to retirement, I started feeding her treats from the gelding's back while riding in the field.
It was amusing to watch her begin to anticipate and attempt to create opportunities where she controlled the feeding of treats. I normally saved this activity for when the gelding and I finished working. She would anticipate our path (this in a 40 acre field) and intercept us earlier than planned. After she learned that this wouldn't work, she began to place herself near the most likely location where we would finish work and feed a treat to her. This happened in a space where she had been worked in the past, before retirement. The only time she would not do this was when hay was fed in the field (this happens in winter pasture). The key is that she would watch us even while eating fresh hay, and move in our direction once she anticipated the ending of our work session.
This was not a training activity. I would otherwise ride up to the mare and call her over. She instigated the interception of horse and rider on her own, after carefully and consistently watching us work and learning our behavioral patterns, which were very similar to ones we did when she was being ridden. I have had over 19 years of experience with this particular horse and seen her demonstrate similar behaviors where she clearly thought through a situation to achieve a desired outcome--and rarely was it associated with human training goals, but rather at liberty, often in a field with other horses.
I too have found horses readily anticipate cues and learn complex patterns. In fact, pattern learning appears to be a pre-requisite for anticipation in many cases.
Thank you, this was a super well written comment. One thing that - as a practical only horse trainer - I didn't find when reading the paper the first time at least, was how many repetitions was made in each training session. My experience is that when teaching a horse something simple, like touching an object or not touching it, the number of rewards/no rewards needed is low. Usually three or four repetitions is needed to teach a naive horse to touch an object. I haven't tried teaching a cue for not touching, preferring to use another behaviour that can also be rewarded, but I think there would be a low number of repetitions needed there, too. Unless the horse in question would be really optimistic and super resistant to negative punishment.
As a former special education teacher with a lot of experience in cognitive assessment, plus 25+ years of adult horse experience, my answer to the question is--a guarded yes. Add to that the caveat that "not all horses" are capable of such thinking. There is a range of intelligence in horses just like there is in humans.
Much of this planning and strategizing is going to be based on things important *to the horse*, not necessarily to the human. A horse that has specific toileting areas will do so for reasons important to the horse--either limiting pasture areas fouled by poop in order to have clean eating spaces, or else (in the case of stallions and some geldings) territorial marking. Motivation for these purposes will differ from horse to horse--a mare is not necessarily going to be interested in territorial marking, and we all know male horses who don't care about territorial marking or keeping things clean.
Acquisition of a desired treat is going to be much more of a common motivation. I have two rather intelligent horses who are both extremely food-motivated, the gelding more than the mare (he has experienced food deprivation in the past where she has not). The mare is a retired reining horse and has demonstrated the ability to retain complex patterns in her memory, including anticipating flying change requests in one exercise where the change is requested after a certain number of small squares in one direction (reliably up to seven squares, inconsistent after that). As part of a bonding exercise between her and the gelding as well as easing the transition from work to retirement, I started feeding her treats from the gelding's back while riding in the field.
It was amusing to watch her begin to anticipate and attempt to create opportunities where she controlled the feeding of treats. I normally saved this activity for when the gelding and I finished working. She would anticipate our path (this in a 40 acre field) and intercept us earlier than planned. After she learned that this wouldn't work, she began to place herself near the most likely location where we would finish work and feed a treat to her. This happened in a space where she had been worked in the past, before retirement. The only time she would not do this was when hay was fed in the field (this happens in winter pasture). The key is that she would watch us even while eating fresh hay, and move in our direction once she anticipated the ending of our work session.
This was not a training activity. I would otherwise ride up to the mare and call her over. She instigated the interception of horse and rider on her own, after carefully and consistently watching us work and learning our behavioral patterns, which were very similar to ones we did when she was being ridden. I have had over 19 years of experience with this particular horse and seen her demonstrate similar behaviors where she clearly thought through a situation to achieve a desired outcome--and rarely was it associated with human training goals, but rather at liberty, often in a field with other horses.
I too have found horses readily anticipate cues and learn complex patterns. In fact, pattern learning appears to be a pre-requisite for anticipation in many cases.
Thank you, this was a super well written comment. One thing that - as a practical only horse trainer - I didn't find when reading the paper the first time at least, was how many repetitions was made in each training session. My experience is that when teaching a horse something simple, like touching an object or not touching it, the number of rewards/no rewards needed is low. Usually three or four repetitions is needed to teach a naive horse to touch an object. I haven't tried teaching a cue for not touching, preferring to use another behaviour that can also be rewarded, but I think there would be a low number of repetitions needed there, too. Unless the horse in question would be really optimistic and super resistant to negative punishment.
Fascinating study. Thank you for sharing this.