Knowing Isn't Enough

We're living through a golden age of equine science. In the past two decades alone, research has given us practical ways to recognise pain in horses, shown us the welfare costs of restrictive management such as prolonged stabling, and revealed the physical and psychological impact of tight nosebands, rollkur training techniques and the welfare implications of lack of social contact. We've learned how horses respond to different handling methods, questioned practices that put performance ahead of welfare, and identified signs of compromised welfare that are still routinely misread or ignored in competitive sport. And yet, for all this knowledge, it could be argued that horses still aren't getting a significantly better deal.

At the 2023 International Society for Equitation Science Conference in New Zealand, Professor Craig Johnston delivered the 'Clever Hans' Plenary lecture, in which he raised a critical question: what happens when scientists believe they have the answer, but the people who need to act on it aren't really listening? To illustrate it, he drew on the biblical story of Jonah and the whale.* Jonah, certain of his God-given mission, boarded a ship crewed by sailors and navigators whose practical knowledge of timber and tide, of stars and storms, was long established and collectively held. When the storm struck, it was their shared, grounded experience that kept the vessel afloat, not Jonah's individual conviction. What Jonah learned, eventually, was that certainty of purpose isn't enough; he needed the knowledge and cooperation of those around him.

You can be right about the evidence and still be the least useful person in the room.

That, in a sentence, is what this article is about. Science can tell us, with growing clarity and confidence, what horses need for positive welfare and what harms them, but knowing isn't the same as doing, and knowledge on its own rarely changes human behaviour. Resistance to new evidence isn't just ignorance or insensitivity; it's intertwined with identity, tradition, community and livelihood, which is why individual owners who say they want the best for their horse often don't change their practices, even when the supporting evidence is incontrovertible, and why governing bodies and professional communities resist or cherry-pick evidence even when it's clearly laid out. Closing the gap between what we know and what we do takes ethics and empathy as much as data, and it involves working with people rather than against them. Put simply, if we're serious about improving horse welfare, we need to understand human behaviour just as well as we understand horse behaviour and welfare.

Knowledge doesn’t always lead to action

There's often an assumption in animal welfare advocacy: produce enough good evidence, communicate it clearly, and action will follow. It's an understandable belief, but it isn’t supported by what we know about how people actually change their attitudes and behaviour.

For example, decades of research in public health, environmental management and business practice have shown that knowing that something is harmful, or even ineffective, doesn't reliably make a person or organisation stop doing it. Smokers have known for sixty years that smoking causes cancer, and many still smoke. Drivers understand the risks of speeding, and our roads are still full of cars in a rush. The gulf between knowledge and action isn't a communication or even an education problem, it concerns the way humans relate to their habits, their communities, their livelihoods and their sense of who they are.

Why are people resistant to change?

For many people, the way they work with horses is bound up with tradition, professional identity, financial survival and a deeply held sense of what good horsemanship means. A trainer whose career is built on a particular approach, or a rider who has competed successfully under rules now being questioned on welfare grounds, doesn't receive new evidence as a neutral piece of information arriving from outside. They receive it as a challenge to something they've always done, and a threat to who they are and how they make a living.

Psychologists call this motivated reasoning: we weigh new information against what we already believe, and find it less convincing when it clashes with what matters to us. Organisations aren't immune. Governing bodies and sport federations carry institutional cultures, commercial pressures, reputational interests and long histories, all of which shape how they respond to new knowledge. Welfare science lands in a complex social and economic world that's remarkably good at absorbing, deflecting or simply waiting out uncomfortable findings.

There's also the question of how unevenly the science has spread. Plenty of people who genuinely care about their horses simply don't realise that their management choices, rugging routines, stabling arrangements or training methods may be at odds with what we now know about equine psychological as well as physical needs. Unawareness and resistance are two sides of the same coin. They can produce similar outcomes, but they need quite different responses.

Ethics and empathy

Science tells us what's happening and, to a degree, what's likely to happen. Deciding what to do with new information involves ethical perspectives, operating at personal, professional and societal levels. Ethical questions can't be answered by a research paper. They need reflection, conversation and a genuine willingness to engage in what at times may feel uncomfortable. They also need empathy: a willingness to consider, as honestly as we can, what the experience of a horse under a particular set of conditions might actually involve.

The science of equine sentience and cognition has made that easier over the past two decades. We know horses have sophisticated emotional lives. They experience fear, frustration, pain and pleasure, and they're sensitive to the social and physical environments in which they're kept. We know they aren't well served by isolation, restricted movement, conflicting or unpredictable handling, or training that relies on escalating pressure. Research has provided the knowledge, the ethical question is what we're actually prepared to change.

Why collaboration works better

One response to addressing the gap between evidence and practice that has become increasingly prevalent is to 'name and shame': to publicly 'call-out' organisations, discoplines or individuals whose practices fall below what current science recommends. Whilst this approach may have a certain intuitive appeal, particularly if you've watched poor practice go unchallenged and unchanged for years, the trouble is that naming and shaming rarely produces lasting change, and frequently produces the opposite. When people feel publicly attacked, they get defensive. When organisations feel threatened, they close ranks. The psychological research is consistent: shame and public humiliation tend to entrench behaviours rather than change them, because they trigger self-protective responses that override the more reflective processes through which genuine change happens. People or organisations who feel attacked don't become more open to new ideas; they become more invested in proving they were right all along.

That doesn't mean poor or uninformed practice shouldn't be challenged, but it does mean thinking hard about how to challenge effectively. How new knowledge is framed and delivered matters enormously, especially when the goal is to support real shifts in attitudes and behaviour rather than trigger resentment and entrenchment.

Collaboration, co-design and sustained communication work differently. When organisations and individuals are involved as genuine participants in developing new welfare standards, rather than passive recipients of external judgement, they develop ownership of the outcome. When the people affected by change are listened to and their concerns taken seriously, they're far more likely to find the new direction credible and workable. I'm not suggesting dilute standards, I'm suggesting we respect that changing practice means people shifting their own thinking and behaviour, and that this happens more readily when judgement is shelved and someone walks alongside them.

Co-design also produces better outcomes in practical terms. People working in racing, competition or leisure riding often understand their horses' conditions in ways that researchers and welfare advocates don't. Their knowledge, experience and concerns are a resource, and welfare interventions built with that knowledge in mind are far more likely to be adopted and sustained.

Science provides the rigorous foundation and the data, while experience provides the context, nuance and practical application.

What this means for advancing horse welfare

Those of us working in horse welfare certainly aren't short of evidence, and its great to see this body of work growing each year. What we need, with increasing urgency, is the capacity to work with people in ways that incorporate their behaviour as part of the welfare equation, rather than treating it as an obstacle to be overcome.

That means investing in communication that meets people where they are, not where we wish they were, and designing welfare initiatives with industry participants rather than simply for them. It means using behaviour change theory and the psychology of resistance, not as replacements for scientific expertise but as the means by which knowledge gained through rigorous research becomes usable in the real world.

It also means being honest that the ethical questions at the heart of horse welfare, questions about their nature and limits of what we ask of them won't be resolved through science alone. Effectively addressing welfare concerns needs ongoing, inclusive conversation in which horse people, owners and industry professionals are all part of the dialogue. Change tends to arrive slowly and incrementally, through the accumulation of small shifts in practice, culture and professional norms.

Genuine change tends to happen when science enters into conversation with experience, not when it talks past it.

Changing practices is achievable, but it takes patience, strategy and a genuine understanding of why people behave as they do. Science alone isn't enough. It can signpost the direction of travel, and it can monitor and measure the milestones along the way, but it's understanding human behaviour that makes the welfare outcomes achievable.

* The story of Jonah appears in the Book of Jonah in the Hebrew Bible and Old Testament. Fleeing a task he had been given, Jonah boards a ship, a great storm rises, and the sailors' shared skill and judgement prove decisive before Jonah is cast overboard and swallowed by a great fish.

Navigate Welfare supports organisations and individuals working in the equine sector to use evidence-informed approaches to improve horse welfare, including the application of human behaviour change methods to support lasting and meaningful change in practice.