Pain recognition in horses can be very difficult; this is because many horses naturally try to hide their vulnerability to predators. Similarly to humans, individual horses have variations in how they express pain, and often you, as their owners who are very familiar with their individual normal behaviour, are key in recognising some of the more subtle signs of pain.

Horses demonstrate numerous and varying signs of pain. These are dependent on factors such as the individual animal, the environment and circumstances, the location of the pain and the severity of the pain. Some of the ‘general signs’ of pain may seem contradictory but reflect the variation in how individual horses show pain