I have recently discovered the pleasure of watching Warwick Schillers training videos, particularly those from the last few years where he’s gone deep into connecting with the horse as his guiding principle. One of the things he’s done a total u-turn on is “dealing” with the mouthy horse. He no longer treats it as something to fix but responds to the horse with his full attention and uses his hands to engage with the horse’s muzzle. I have been playing with this for a few weeks with Jake. Although Jake is much less mouthy than he used to be it’s still a default, especially when he is uncertain, anxious, hungry, unwell, happy to see you, feeling fresh…errr hang on that’s a lot of moods 😉

So I’ve been responding to his coming towards me with his nose with full engagement, touching all over his muzzle and nostrils (no higher than the muzzle as this becomes more about play) It’s like a horsey handshake or hug. At first, I was doing it with some enthusiasm but still slightly from an observing state of mind but as we go on I find myself drawn into the fantastic world that is my horse’s muzzle.

The sensitivity of a horse’s nose is incredible, supplied by a myriad of nerves it is incredibly dextrous and used to both feel and smell the environment with an accuracy that us humans can barely imagine. Every part of it is taking in information – their whiskers are massively important for proprioception (the FEI have finally banned trimming whiskers in competitions); the muzzle can sift through hay finding the right pieces or separate the minute homeopathic pill you’ve hidden in their feed and that’s before we even come to their sense of smell.

It’s still an under researched area but horses are thought to be able to smell a watering hole from 10 miles away, determine how long another herd of horses was in the area and whether they are familiar plus know the state of their health and if the mares are in season just from smelling their dung. Their large flaring nostrils are designed to pull in large quantities of odour molecules, which pass over nerve rich mucosa which warm and filter the air, so they have more chance to bind quickly to millions of olfactory receptors. The receptors send out sensory nerve impulses to the twin olfactory bulbs, located at the front of the cerebrum. The left nostril connects to the left olfactory bulb and the right with right so they can identify not only what the smell is but the direction it is coming from. It’s not surprising horses need to use their noses to build confidence in their environment when you realise how refined the information is especially when their vision is fairly poor up close. Giving your horse time to sniff you and anything new you are introducing definitely makes horse sense.

If that wasn’t impressive enough, they also have a vomeronasal organ to increase their smelling skills even more. It contributes to their ability to identify and analyse odour molecules emanating from other animals and humans, particularly pheromones. The funny smile or flehmen response that is so often used for comic photographic effect may just be that horse trying to identify the strange and interesting smell coming from that human!

So next time your horse comes to you and reaches forward to engage you respond with loving hands and explore that wonderful velvet nose. Be with it with full presence and engagement and you’ll start to see that our horse’s noses tell us a lot about how they are feeling – and they like it when we get that 😊

Engaging with your horse's senses - The sense of smell