'Bits Work Because They Hurt'

“Bits work because they hurt,” plus the urgency for dressage judges to stop rewarding practices that may cause harm, were among the uncomfortable take-aways for the FEI veterinary committee when it met prominent equitation scientists two weeks ago.

In trying to maintain social licence to operate, the FEI has insisted on “evidence-based” decision-making and is commissioning new scientific research into training practices and equipment.

But this 50-minute presentation – now on YouTube – came from equitation scientists who have already been researching the equine “oral cavity” and how bits affect it for decades. They said: “More invasive research into the welfare effects is not required, because the existing evidence allows all witnesses to conclude that the horses in our data-sets are experiencing episodic pain and negative welfare.”

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Welfare in Dressage: The visual and scientific evidence

In February, the same group sent an open letter to the FEI about conflict behaviours and alleged blue tongues in top-placed dressage horses at the Neumunster and Amsterdam shows in Europe. The German federation contacted them for further discussion, and the FEI invited them to participate by video link in its scheduled veterinary meeting on April 9.

They took turns to explain the bridle and rein pressures that they believe cause pain, albeit unintentionally, and why horses will perform even when in pain.

The group has embraced the work of Norwegian photographer Crispin Parelius Johannessen, who uses a high spec camera with superior image quality to capture a level of detail of the horse’s head during a dressage test that is not achievable with video. His work is dividing the wider community, with opponents saying his pictures show “only a moment in time.”

On April 9, Johannessen’s segment aimed to bust that myth. He stitched together hundreds of consecutive stills (see above from the 12-minute mark onwards) and used the images’ raw data (image above) to show that conflict behaviours are often prolonged, not fleeting.

Cristina Wilkins, the presentation’s moderator, said: “Bits work because they hurt. As a lifelong rider with professional experience, I had completely normalized the use of headgear that allowed me to apply, manage and release pressure. But when you consider the anatomy and physiology of the affected tissues and you can examine the effects with the level of detail that high-definition, fast-brain photography can reveal, you can’t un-see it.”

The researchers hoped their recommendations were seen as a positive:

FEI to accept that any gear applying pressure is a significant welfare risk.
Urgently revise dressage judging criteria to reward, not penalize, riders for visible releases of contact or rein tension.
Recognize that pressure-induced tissue damage, hyperflexion [rollkur] and indicators of fear and pain show compromised welfare.
Respect the horse’s need to perform comfort behaviours, such as lip-licking, coughing, swallowing and yawning, and to deliberate concealment – i.e., restricting or hiding jaw and tongue movements, tail swishing and ear movements; to classify such attempts as breaches of FEI clean sport.
Adopt non-invasive methods such as high-definition photograph to identify welfare indicators and at-risk horses. Integrate these into judging and stewarding.
Document pressure-induced lesions and enforce rest from any bit until healed.

The scientists, and extracts from their presentations

Dr. Kati Tormola is a multiple award-winning veterinarian from the University of Helsinki, Finland. Her thesis examined bit-related injuries in competition horses. Her veterinary practice focuses on equine dentistry.

She reviewed Johannessen’s picture sequences of (unidentified) horses and highlighted recurring features – open mouths, lifting and bulging tongues, and a dark lilac [blue] tongue color compared to palatal mucosa; intense staring and tension above the eyes, and concerns as to the reason for swelling where the eye area is normally concave; and evidence of older mouth lesions, leading to a recommendation that this horse should have immediate treatment and some time off; plus compressions from spurs.

“In my PhD studies where I examined almost 500 horses after a competition, the use of unjointed bits was clearly associated with injuries in the bar of the mandible.”

Cristina Wilkins was an elite squad eventing rider and coach in her native Spain in the 1980s/early 1990s. Settling in Queensland, she worked with leading research veternarians in Australia and New Zealand, her views having changed after reading Dr. Andrew McLean’s book The Truth About Horses.

She is working for a PhD at the University of New England into welfare outcomes of human-horse interactions and co-author of a recent meta study into 58 peer-reviewed research papers on hyperflexion.

“Fear, like pain, is an evolved biological adaptation, a defence mechanism that protects against threats to biological fitness, and which is felt [by horses] as a negative experience. So, while pain signals actual or potential tissue damage, fear is triggered by perceived threats to the body’s integrity and can arise before damage occurs.

“In welfare terms, however, pain and fear are closely related because fear reflects a state in which the animal anticipates such harms and behaves accordingly; for example, by taking or attempting avoidance actions.

“From the animal’s perspective, even if their physical health is intact, the perception of threat means their welfare is compromised to a similar degree, as if injury had occurred.”

Prof. David Mellor of Massey University, New Zealand, is the architect of the five domains model for animal welfare assessment. He is an expert on pain, having spent 30 years studying tissue-damaging livestock husbandry practices, much of which was for the government.

“The evidence [against double bridles] is explicit and unequivocal. The dressage horses in our data-sets are clearly in pain. Open mouth, quivering lower lip, ‘pain face;’ visible compression and sometimes lesioning of the tongue, lips and gums, and pressure on the bars, the diastema.

“Horses breathe through their noses. Swallowing with a closed mouth keeps a negative pressure in the oral cavity, that is the throat, and holds the soft palate down on the tongue.

“The bit breaks the seal and dissipates the negative pressure. The soft palate cannot be held down. It flaps with each breath through the nose. This impedes airflow in and out of the lungs. Maintaining low to very low jowl angles (hyperflexion) constricts the throat.

“This will lead to two types of breathlessness: respiratory effort due to resistant airflow, and air hunger due to inability to keep the partial pressures of carbon dioxide at low levels. And these two, thus, reveal the potential for hyperflexion to cause feelings of suffocation.”

Prof. Paul McGreevy from the University of Sydney School of Veterinary Science is globally recognized for his contributions to animal behaviour and animal welfare science. He is co-author of over 300 peer-reviewed articles and nine books.

“The reason [dressage] riders need this level of control is because they’re riding highly aroused horses with a heightened response to the ‘go’ button. That’s the acceleration coming from the spurs, for example. And this means that they have to meet that with technology to amplify the ‘stop’ button.

“We’ve been calling for technology to facilitate and reduce the cognitive load of dressage judges for at least ten years now. What’s encouraging is that the new Dressage Strategic Action Group has actually asked for scientists to give them a language and a set of indicators they can use to adapt to changes in the judging.

“Unfortunately, much of the permitted and required equipment, notably restrictive nosebands, is designed to obscure many indicators…. open mouths, lolling tongues, grinding teeth and crossing of the jaw.

“We need to ensure that the horse that makes correct responses is rewarded for those responses. Unfortunately, the current dressage judging directives are incompatible when they require contact is maintained at all times.

“In addition to the negative welfare impacts, tight nosebands, tight curb chains and bit use leading to the effects [we have] presented represent a form of performance enhancement that breaches ‘clean sport’ principles.”

Dr. Cath Henshall is a postdoctoral fellow at Charles Sturt University, Australia, researching Indicators of equine emotional state. She was previously a coach, had a management role at the Adelaide CCI5* and is a council member and trustee of the International Society for Equitation Science.

“Horses have evolved a range of neurological, physiological, emotional and behavioural responses that allow them to learn how to escape and avoid harmful stimuli.

“The noxious sensory characteristics of these stimuli, as well as signs that predict their onset (such as the rider adjusting the reins), engage neural networks governing learning, memory, fear and threat responses that ultimately lead to horses learning specific responses that allow escape from those impacts.

“This is known as negative reinforcement, commonly called pressure release, and it’s the basis of equitation.

“When horses are exposed to simultaneous pressures from bits and spurs, it is likely that it is the spur pressures for ‘go’ and not bit pressures for slowing that are salient [more prominent]. This is because spur pressures are applied intermittently and the horse can escape them by performing the desired responses.

“In comparison, bit and noseband pressures are constant and consequently, the sensory inputs provide no information to the horse about how it can reduce their impacts, meaning they are not a focus of the horse’s attention.

“When the horse is being repeatedly or constantly exposed to more than one type of aversive stimulus, the one that can be escaped, even if only for a short period, is likely to be more salient.

“Horses form habits in relatively few repetitions and when animals are stressed, habitual responses are more likely to control their behaviour, including in situations where that might actually lead to harm.

“Given the extensive training dressage horses undergo, and the stress of competition, it is likely that their habit neural system is contributing to maintaining their locomotor responses during a test, in spite of the bit effects on their oral tissues.

“Thirdly, all sentient species use predictions to make sense of their worlds. Horses will predict that the bit pressures are inescapable. This may mean they cease trying to escape the pressure and in combination with the spurs, continue to perform as the rider wishes.

“In addition, if they have been trained to predict that they will be hit with a whip, unless they maintain forward movement or high steps, they will maintain that behaviour to escape and then avoid the predicted whip strikes.”

Prof. Amy Lykins is is professor in clinical psychology at the University of New England and a registered clinical psychologist in Australia and Canada. Her research takes a one-welfare, one-health approach in investigating the interactions amongst human, animal and environmental health and welfare. In a primarily visual presentation (see video from 40 minutes onwards) she examined the toll on human welfare and likely distress and stresses the current debate is likely to causing to observers, vets, judges and regulators and offered a holistic approach to motivating change.