Horses are prey animals. The predator goes after the weakest animals in the herd, which is why horses have adapted to hide signs of pain. If we can identify the subtle indications of pain early, we can avoid more serious consequences. 

As riders, we often see signs of pain as normal behavior, since we have been conditioned to believe that there are “naughty” horses, “unwilling” horses and “uncooperative” horses. Instead, we should be thinking why the horses behave the way they do. 

The ridden horse performance checklist, or ridden horse pain ethogram, identifies 24 behaviors, and the display of eight or more of these behaviours indicates the presence of pain. 

Most of these behaviours can have several causes, so it’s not each individual behaviour that needs to be considered, but the total number of behaviours observed.