Oklahoma horse owners and equine professionals now have a new opportunity to better understand horse behavior through the OSU RAISE online course, a detailed educational program designed to help participants recognize horses’ emotional and behavioral cues. In a recent conversation with Associate Farm Reporter Carli Davenport, Dr. Kris Hiney, equine extension specialist at Oklahoma State University, explained how the course gives participants a deeper understanding of equine welfare by focusing on both physical and emotional health.
Understanding the Purpose of RAISE
Hiney said RAISE stands for Recognizing Affective States in Equine, emphasizing that the course focuses heavily on understanding horse emotions and body language. “Affect essentially we’re talking about emotions,” Hiney said. “It’s sort of a deep dive into the body language of the horse, but a lot more than people just think, you know, the ears back, or what’s the tail doing.”
She explained that the course takes a more comprehensive approach by helping people look beyond obvious visual cues. “It really looks at it holistically,” she said. “All of the things that we do, the management, human interaction, all of that affect the horse, and how to pick up on how you can kind of see what’s happening in the horse’s mind.”
Research Revealed an Educational Gap
The idea for the course grew out of research on horse welfare and common misunderstandings among horse owners. According to Hiney, many people rely too heavily on physical indicators when evaluating a horse’s condition. “There is a pretty good body of literature that says that people rely a little bit too much on what we call just the physiological state of the horse,” Hiney said.
She explained that owners often assume a horse is fine if its body condition and hoof health appear good. “If his body condition score is good and his feet are good, then the horse is good, but that really misses a big part about the mental piece of the horse and the mental domain.”
Working alongside colleagues, Hiney wanted to help close that educational gap. “We know that people sometimes have a really hard time recognizing, is it good, is it bad,” she said. “That’s kind of where we came up with this project of building this online course.”
Better Understanding Can Improve Horse Welfare
Hiney believes improving a person’s ability to read horse emotions can directly improve animal welfare and training outcomes. Misreading a horse’s emotional state, she said, can lead to unnecessary stress and escalating behavioral problems. “I think a lot of people get reading horse emotion wrong, and that’s when training practices escalate,” Hiney said. “We’re not really recognizing that the horse is stressed, or frustrated, or scared.”
She said the course helps people identify subtle warning signs that often go unnoticed. “It really is trying to get people to recognize all these more subtle things that are wrong with the horse,” she explained. “Maybe more subtle signs of stress, more subtle signs of pain, and so that you intervene earlier, or you change your management, change your training practices in recognition that, hey, that horse isn’t very comfortable right now.”
Interactive Learning Designed for Horse Owners
Designed with accessibility in mind, the RAISE course offers a highly interactive learning experience. Rather than relying solely on lectures or written material, participants engage with multimedia tools throughout the program. “We built it really with the user in mind,” Hiney said. “It’s self-paced online learning, but it’s not just listening to a recording, it’s not just reading through information.”
She said the course includes videos, reflection exercises, and interactive questions to keep learners engaged. “It has a lot of extra bells and whistles,” she said.
Feedback from participants has been overwhelmingly positive, including from experienced horse owners. “Even from people that are pretty experienced, they’re like, ‘Oh wow, I really didn’t think about that,’ or, ‘I might have been missing that in my own horse.’”
Registration Details and Course Cost
Those interested in enrolling can register through Oklahoma State’s online extension catalog. The course costs $50 per individual, though group discounts are available for barns, clubs, and riding centers.
Hiney said the full course takes about five hours to complete and offers significant depth for serious learners. “It’s pretty detailed,” she said. “There’s a lot of extra reading if you want to do that.”
The program also links participants to open-access research journals for further study. “It’s not just a quick little 20-minute kind of course,” Hiney said. “It is very, very in-depth for people that really want to understand horse behavior and management a little bit better.” Participants who complete the course also receive a certificate, which may help those seeking continuing education opportunities.
Additionally, you can access the first module free here to get a glimpse of the course.
