Book
Janet Jones, Little, Brown and Company
鈥淧eople often tell me they wish their horses could talk,鈥� writes Janet Jones, equestrian, neuroscientist and international bestselling author. 鈥淏ut in fact, horses talk to us all the time, just not in speech. Every movement has a meaning; most people just don鈥檛 know how to decipher it.鈥�
Readers might recognise Jones from her 2020 hit, Horse Brain, Human Brain. But this strikingly accurate, if not provocative statement comes from chapter six of her new book, A Horse鈥檚 World: A neuroscientist鈥檚 journey into the equine mind. It echoes what horse behaviour scientists have said for years: seemingly quiet, stoic beasts, horses are communicating endlessly, but we humans are so brutishly reliant on loud, spoken speech that we tend to miss it.
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Jones, it seems, does not. As we find throughout the book, where she blends scientific explanations with colourful storytelling about her adventures with her horse True North, Jones 鈥渟peaks True鈥� 鈥� literally. She explains how she gets to see the world from his viewpoint, listening, bonding, training and providing good welfare as his 鈥済uide鈥� in the human world. She speaks his language and aims to help readers do the same.
It is a romantic story, and an easy read, as Jones expertly slips scientific concepts into an engaging tale that illustrates her points, while presenting True and other horses at her barn as unique characters. That鈥檚 sure to delight horse lovers and general readers, and especially her fanbase.
Particularly praiseworthy are the book鈥檚 central chapters on horse ethology (exploring herd dynamics, their need for outdoor grazing and why they like to live in groups) and fear responses (what scares them, how they react and why). That kind of well-researched, evidence-based knowledge will significantly improve the lives of horses and their relationships with humans. We care for our animals much better when we know what to expect, without foisting human characteristics 鈥� wrong, bad, mean, stupid and so on 鈥� onto them. This is reassuring in a general interest book, and Jones is to be lauded.
As a science journalist who has been writing about horses for 20 years, though, I found several chapters tough going. First, there were tangents, such as the fitness benefits of riding and the athletic prowess of different breeds.
But some of Jones鈥檚 declarations acted as stumbling blocks, too. For example, her key premise is that horses鈥� 鈥減rey brains鈥� are nothing like the 鈥減redator brains鈥� of humans, dogs, cats and monkeys. That鈥檚 not only frustratingly reductive, but is often contradicted across Jones鈥檚 chapters. Like humans, she writes later, horses learn better with rewards and without fear, appreciate predictability, play more when young, experience collaborative brain hemisphere function on all tasks, and share many brain chemicals with us, such as serotonin, dopamine and oxytocin. Like most mammals, horses have a strong sense of time, feel separation anxiety (normal and pathological) and 鈥済et the zoomies on cool, frisky days鈥�.
Jones also tends to explain horse brain function by citing studies on primates, dogs and rats coupled with her own experience with horses because of what she repeatedly describes as a lack of relevant research. I was perplexed. From the early 2000s, researchers have made great progress in understanding horse brains, cognition, behaviour, emotions, personalities, communication and relationships. Equitation science emerged as a field, devoted to such themes and their use in ethical horse training, management and horse-human relationships.
More than ever, scientists know what is going on in horses鈥� minds. A Horse鈥檚 World largely ignores this. It also lends no weight to the much-studied concept of how horses learn, known among behavioural scientists as 鈥渓earning theory鈥�. Instead, Jones describes 鈥渞eward鈥� training that poorly aligns with current science, while promoting her own 鈥渄irect brain-to-brain communication鈥� in which closely bonded horses and humans live 鈥渢emporarily inside each other鈥檚 brains, sharing neural information鈥� in real time without linguistic or mechanical mediation鈥�. Not only is there no evidence for this, but her description still invokes touch (鈥渂odily cues鈥�) as an intermediary.
All this doesn鈥檛 make horses any less magnificent: science confirms they are sensitive, intelligent, keen learners and, as Jones reminds us, excellent communicators. Readers will finish A Horse鈥檚 World with a greater appreciation of horse 鈥渓anguage鈥� and a deeper respect for the equine mind.
Christa Lest茅-Lasserre is a science journalist specialising in animal health and behaviour
