WHY HORSES LOVE MUD
Thick, claggy mud — it’s the bane of every equestrian’s winter routine. Charlotte Cooper finds out from experts why our horses seemingly make a beeline for the wettest part of the field for a good roll and why they appear to relish being covered from head to toe in sludge
IT IS CERTAINLY frustrating. Having just groomed your horse and let him out into his field, the first thing he does is have a roll, covering himself in dust, or worse — mud.
Rolling may seem like a very basic and easy to understand part of equine behaviour, but scratch the surface and there’s a lot more going on than might be imagined.
There are many varied reasons why a horse might roll, and even good logic as to why he might choose the muddiest patch in the field to do so.
Herd dynamics
The first and most obvious reason that a horse rolls in the field, according to horse behaviourist Catherine Wensley-Green, is that rolling is a combination of massage and grooming to the equine.
“It’s their way of having a bath. It’s a good way to get rid of itches and scrub themselves on the back. It gets rid of loose hair and is a very freeing and liberating thing for horses to do,” she says However, the most important reason why a horse rolls is scent marking.
“Daily survival for a horse is all about being the most dominant in the herd. If we took off all the tack and turned all our horses out into pasture, no matter what breed they were — from Thoroughbreds to coloured cobs — they would act like horses acted thousands of years ago,” she points out, and that means scent marking.
“A horse’s main daily goal is to survive, and the more dominant the horse, the larger his chances of survival. Therefore, every day he is doing small things to assert his dominance in the herd. Rolling is a big part of this.”
Because ofthe way horses are managed today, dominance in the herd changes all the time, and the need for each horse to assert himself is constant.
“When you turn your horse into afield with other horses, rolling isone of the first things he will do. Herd dynamics change all the time in ahorse
