No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

The working relationship between horses and riders is a unique association requiring cooperation between both to achieve the goals of humans in their selected equestrian sport. This dissertation chose the equestrian sports of eventing and dressage to investigate this working relationship between horse and rider, and its stability across training and competition settings. Consideration was given to psychological, physiological and behavioural factors for the human and horse. The research requiredthe development of a measure to indicate the harmony of the working relationship, which resulted in a rider and observer inventory, and of a physiological indicator of therelationship which became the correlation between the horse and rider heart rate and was called heart rate synchronisation. To examine reactive behavioural factors of the horse a horse Behaviour Check List was created, and to consider possible psychological factors implicated in this behaviour a Horse Temperament Inventory was developed.Anxiety was the psychological factor chosen to assess the rider, and the Competitive State Anxiety Inventory – 2 and the Emotion and Mood Components of Anxiety – Questionnaire were used as its different components.It was hypothesized that there would be significant environmental differences between most factors with the competition environment showing evidence of lowerworking relationship scores, higher heart rates, higher rider anxiety, and more reactive horse behaviours. Horse temperament was considered to be a trait and therefore nodifferences were predicted. Negative relationships were hypothesized between the working relationship measures and rider anxiety components, horse temperament andcritical horse behaviours. A positive relationship was hypothesized between rider self confidence and the working relationship. Negative relationships were also predictedbetween rider anxiety, horse temperament and horse behaviour. No specific predictions were made regarding relationships between rider and horse heart rates and the other factors.In Study 1 with five eventing teams, results from Cohen’s d analyses of differences between means supported some hypotheses. A moderate to large effect size was found for rider’s somatic anxiety and heart rate being higher in the competition environment, but no significant effects were found for the rider’s cognitive anxiety and levels of self-confidence across environments. However, contrary to hypotheses, working relationship and the heart rate synchronisation factors had higher scores in thecompetition environment and showed a small and large effect size respectively. The horse’s temperament was also more positive in the competition environment, with theHorse Temperament Inventory – Rider (HTI-R) revealing a small effect size and the Horse Temperament Inventory – Observer (HTI-O) without the rider a large effect size,suggesting that it seems to be identifying a psychological state of the horse rather than the hypothesized temperament traits. The hypothesis regarding the horse and rider’s heart rate was also accepted as they also increased in the competition environment. The horse’s maximum heart rate and minimum heart rate showed a moderate effect size and a large effect size was found in the differences of the horse’s mean heart rate. Therider’s maximum heart rate and mean heart rate data also showed a large effect size and the rider’s minimum heart rate means showed a moderate effect size. Due to unforeseencircumstances and the low number of participants, the hypotheses could not be evaluated using inferential statistics. However, the patterns of the findings led to some modifications of methods and the selection of another equestrian sport for Study 2.The findings from Study 2 with thirty dressage teams indicate the working relationship between horse and rider was stable across environments during a dressagetest. The heart rate synchronisation analysis was able to identify significant relationships between most horse and rider teams during a dressage test in both the training and competition environments. At a group level the correlation between the horse and rider heart rates displayed a significant positive relationship in the training environment, but not in the competition environment. A t-test analysis found stabilityof the horse’s temperament across environments, suggesting that the Horse Temperament Inventory is measuring temperament traits. Also the rider’s somatic anxiety showed a significant increase in the competition environment, which was also reflected in the rider’s emotional experience of this anxiety. Unexpectedly the rider’s self-confidence was also significantly higher in the competition environment. However, no predicted associations were found between working relationship scores and heart rate synchronisation, or between these measures and horse and rider factors.The relationship between reactive horse misbehaviours and rider anxiety, and the team’s working relationship was analysed. A significant association was found between each of the rider’s and judge’s ratings of the working relationship and heart rate synchronisation with the horse’s misbehaviour scores in the competitionenvironment. The rider’s somatic anxiety also showed a significant association with the horse’s misbehaviour in both the training and competition environments. Significantrelationships were also found between horse misbehaviour and performance in both training and competition environments. To extend this investigation further adiscriminant function analysis was conducted to determine if the riders with levels of high and low cognitive and somatic anxiety could be categorised on the basis of horsetemperament. It revealed that riders with high and low levels of somatic anxiety could be categorised on the basis of the horse’s temperament score, whereas riders with high and low levels of cognitive anxiety could be classified on the basis of the horse’s heart rate means in the competition environment.Overall, the dissertation has significant methodological, conceptual and practical outcomes. It demonstrates possible self report, observational and physiologicalindicators to assess the horse-rider working relationship, and a reliable measure of horse temperament. It also addresses several speculations, assumptions and anecdotalreferences in the literature about the interactive association between horse and rider. Findings here point to significant associations between horse and rider psychology and physiology, and patterns of relationships that may indicate some relevance to theworking relationship, and ultimately performance.

Respiratory disease is an important cause of wastage in the Australian horse racing industry and viruses are frequently suspected as aetiological agents of respiratory disease or poor performance by clinicians and trainers but confirmation is seldom attempted. This thesis deals with the potential role of equine herpes virus types 1, 2, 4 and 5 in upper respiratory disease and poor performance in horses in Western Australia. The methodology selected for the identification of equine herpes viruses in tissues of horses was polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and therefore individual PCR assays were developed for the detection of each herpes virus, and then a nested multiplex PCR was developed to detect all four viruses. There was good correlation between the multiplex PCR for the detection of EHV and the detection of virus by isolation in cell culture, although a combination of the 2 techniques provided greater sensitivity than either technique alone. The multiplex PCR described appeared equally sensitive as specific PCR assays using a single set of primers for each individual virus but reduced labour and reagent costs. As latency is a well recognised phenomenon in the equine herpes viruses and the horse is subjected to a number of stresses which might induce reactivation of latent infections, it was hypothesised that there would be a background level of replication of the equine herpes viruses in clinically normal horses. Nasal swabs and peripheral blood leukocytes (PBL) were obtained from 282 clinical normal horses and examined for EHV. The results clearly demonstrated the widespread occurrence of EHV in the clinically healthy horses. The rate of detection of different types of EHV varied, as did the prevalence in young and adult horses. The most common EHV detected was EHV5: in 83.2% of 131 of horses <2 years of age; in 40% of horses >2 years of age. A prospective clinical study was conducted whereby respiratory tract samples and PBL from adult horses with respiratory disease and/or poor performance were examined for equine herpes viruses; the aim was to determine a possible association between equine herpes virus infection and respiratory disease and/or poor performance. The relative incidence of factors identified in the history, signalment, physical and laboratory evaluation of horses in the study population was compared between horses from which EHV was identified in respiratory samples and horses negative for equine herpes virus. The results indicated that equine herpes viruses were important causes of respiratory disease in the study population, and that haematological and cytological data were a poor indicator of such equine herpes virus infection. The occurrence of equine herpes virus in nasal swabs and PBL of weaned or unweaned foals from Thoroughbred breeding establishments was determined and provided data on the occurrence of EHV in association with respiratory disease. EHV5 was detected in nasal swabs and/or PBL at a high prevalence rate in healthy foals and yearling horses but its occurrence was not associated with clinical signs of respiratory disease. In contrast, EHV2 was detected more commonly in nasal swabs and/or PBL from foals with respiratory disease than in similar samples from healthy horses. Experimental infection of 8 horses with EHV2 was attempted and induced clinical signs of respiratory disease, but less severe than observed in the epidemiological studies. The results suggested that EHV2 is associated with mild upper respiratory tract infection in young horses.

Thesis (M.S.)--Georgia Southern University, 2007. / "A thesis submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Georgia Southern University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Science." Under the direction of William S. Irby. ETD. Electronic version approved: May 2007. Includes bibliographical references (p. 36-39)

Diss. (sammanfattning). Uppsala : Sveriges lantbruksuniv. / Härtill 5 uppsatser.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Uppsala : Sveriges lantbruksuniv., 2004. / Härtill 6 uppsatser.