In June 2024 the Fédération Équestre Internationale (FEI) approved an Equine Welfare Strategy Action Plan and set aside a dedicated CHF 1 million fund to support it. That is a real commitment. But approval and funding are not the same as changes in how horses are trained, entered, managed and checked from one week to the next. The gap between the two is what this article calls the leaky bucket. Welfare can be patched at one point, with a rule, a check or a training guideline, and still drain away if training habits, competition pressure, enforcement and the horse’s life outside competition do not pull in the same direction.
“Leaky bucket” and “welfare becomes culture” are this article’s own framing. Neither phrase is a term used by the FEI or by World Horse Welfare.
Why horse sport depends on social licence
“Social licence to operate” describes the acceptance an activity needs from the public and other stakeholders in order to keep going. It is not a permit issued by a regulator. A sport can hold every formal approval and still lose ground if people judge that its animals are not being treated well.
The FEI Equine Ethics and Wellbeing Commission made this link explicit in its final report to the FEI Board, A Good Life for Horses: Annex 5, dated 18 November 2023. The report states: “For it to have a future, the equestrian world needs to proactively address welfare concerns to strengthen its SLO.” Here SLO means social licence to operate. The commission’s position is that social licence depends in part on optimising equine welfare and communicating clearly with the public. That is the commission’s view, not a finding that welfare alone decides public acceptance.
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World Horse Welfare, the charity, takes a related position. It states: “We strongly believe that involving horses in sport can be ethical and provide horses with a good life as part of the horse-human relationship.” The charity’s stated condition is that practices must evolve with evidence and with changing social expectations, and that the sector must communicate what it is doing. Its work includes studies, education, advice and monitoring of public opinion.
For a veterinary treatment of the same concept, see Julie Fiedler and Josh Slater, “Welfare of Equine Athletes in Sport and the Social License to Operate,” in Equine Sports Medicine and Surgery, third edition, 2024.
What people say about horses in sport
The commission’s report summarises survey results collected in 2022. These are 2022 figures, not a current poll, and the report summaries do not give full sample denominators or methods. Read each percentage as the figure for the group and year named, and do not extend it to other countries or to today’s opinion.
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| Figure | Who was asked | Survey and year |
|---|---|---|
| 66% said they saw horses as a “family member” or “partner” | People involved with horses who were surveyed | Equine Ethics and Wellbeing Commission survey, 2022, as reported in the commission’s November 2023 report |
| 34% named equine welfare as a leading concern about horses in sport | Public respondents | Commission public survey, 2022, as reported in the same report |
| 32% named equine safety as a leading concern | Public respondents | Commission public survey, 2022, as reported in the same report |
| 20% opposed horse involvement in sport under any circumstances | UK public respondents only | World Horse Welfare UK survey, 2022, as summarised in the commission report |
| 40% supported involvement only if welfare and safety improved | UK public respondents only | World Horse Welfare UK survey, 2022, as summarised in the commission report |
The first two rows describe people who are already involved with horses, and the public survey respondents; the last two describe one country. The UK figures are the most useful for understanding conditional support. Two-fifths of UK respondents tied their support to improvements in welfare and safety, which is a different position from both endorsement and rejection. It suggests that public acceptance can be earned through visible change, but the survey does not show how quickly or on what terms that acceptance would be extended.
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Do horses enjoy being involved in sport?
The sources do not settle this question, and an article that claimed to would be overreaching. The commission’s public survey shows that respondents were concerned about whether horses enjoy sport. That is a measure of belief, not of what horses experience.
A 2021 peer-reviewed study, “How Happy Are Equine Athletes? Stakeholder Perceptions of Equine Welfare Issues Associated with Equestrian Sport,” examined how people in equestrian sport perceive welfare issues. Its findings caution against assuming there is a simple, shared definition of a happy sport horse. It argues for objective evidence and for social licence as the basis for decisions. When you read a claim about horse enjoyment, sort it into one of three categories:
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- Stakeholder belief: what owners, riders, officials or the public think a horse feels.
- Observable welfare indicator: something others can check, such as health records, injury patterns, behavioural signs of stress or fitness assessments.
- Subjective experience: what the horse itself feels. None of the sources cited here measures this directly.
What the FEI announced in 2024
Board approval and the CHF 1 million fund
On 6 June 2024 the FEI announced that its Board had approved the Equine Welfare Strategy Action Plan and a dedicated CHF 1 million fund. FEI President Ingmar De Vos said: “This is an important day for horse welfare and the FEI.” The announcement reports approval and funding. It does not show that the actions have been carried out, and no independent evaluation of their effect is cited in the material summarised here.
The six priorities
The plan is organised around six priorities. Each is stated as a focus area, not as a finished set of rules.
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- Training and equipment: training, riding, tack and equipment.
- Physical and emotional stress: recognising stress and protecting safety.
- Accountability and knowledge: checks, enforcement and education.
- The horse’s other 23 hours: the strategy’s own label for the time a horse spends outside training and competition.
- Competitive pressure: competitive drive, including the risk of treating the horse as a number or an object.
- Fitness to compete: horses that are not fit to compete, and health problems that may be masked.
The announcement also mentions education on a “Five Domains” approach, a communications strategy and reporting mechanisms. The sources do not say whether the Five Domains approach is the same as the five-part model in the Delphi study discussed below, so do not assume the two match.
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The 37-action matrix
The FEI’s action matrix lists 37 actions: 26 grouped under the six focus areas and 11 transversal actions that apply across them. Its entries include ethical training; hyperflexion (rollkur); bits, double bridles, nosebands and spurs; stress recognition and safety; checks and enforcement; out-of-competition testing; career profiling; veterinary seminars; and reporting mechanisms. The matrix page does not show a publication date. Check the live FEI page for current status, and do not describe any entry as implemented unless the FEI or an independent source says so.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Welfare has more than one part
A 2023 peer-reviewed Delphi study asked international and national equestrian experts which welfare domains matter for sporthorses in Olympic disciplines. Five areas were rated essential. The table below gives each domain with a plain-language description. The study’s full definitions are not reproduced here, so the descriptions are paraphrase. The final column is this article’s reading of which FEI priority comes closest, not a mapping published by the FEI.
| Delphi domain | Plain meaning | Closest FEI priority (writer’s reading) |
|---|---|---|
| Training management | How horses are prepared and trained | Training and equipment; ethical training entries in the matrix |
| Competition management | How horses are managed around entries, competitions and their pressures | Competitive pressure; fitness to compete |
| Young-horse management | How horses are handled before they are fully mature for sport | Not named among the six priorities |
| Health and veterinary management | Monitoring health and veterinary care | Fitness to compete and masked health problems; veterinary seminars in the matrix |
| Horse–human relationship | The day-to-day relationship between horse and people | Only indirectly, through accountability and the horse’s other 23 hours |
The clearest gap is young-horse management, which none of the six priorities names. This matters because a welfare problem that starts early can appear later as a competition or veterinary problem, and a plan that does not name the early stage has a leak built into it.
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Why one patch can leak
Consider a hypothetical rule that changes which bits or spurs are permitted. It may improve one part of the horse’s day. If training habits, pressure to enter competitions or care outside the arena stay the same, the overall welfare outcome may not change. The example is illustrative and is not drawn from the FEI’s documents.
To test any proposed reform, ask five questions:
- Which part of the horse’s life does it address: training, competition, veterinary care, or time outside competition?
- Does it set a clear rule, improve observation, provide education, or strengthen enforcement and accountability? A rule without enforcement and an education programme without checks leave different gaps.
- What welfare outcome is intended, and how will it be assessed?
- Who is responsible for acting, and who reports progress?
- Is the evidence specific to the discipline, horse population and context being discussed?
What the UK evidence covers
World Horse Welfare’s “Horses in our hands” project was a four-year study led by academics at the University of Bristol’s School of Veterinary Sciences and funded by the charity. It aimed to understand welfare status in England and Wales, identify priority problems, and explore perceptions among owners and industry experts. It is useful wider context for the UK horse population. It is not a study of elite sport horses, so it should not be used to describe welfare in competition.
How to read progress reports
A progress report can list activity without showing that welfare has changed. When a federation or charity reports progress, check which kind of claim it makes:
Quick Recap
- Output: a guideline issued, a seminar held, a fund approved. These show that something was done.
- Outcome: a change in an indicator someone measured, such as injury, stress or health records. These show whether something changed.
- Population and period: which horses, which discipline, which country and which dates the figure covers, and whether it is a one-off result or a recurring measure.
- Status: whether the item is complete, under way or only planned. The matrix is a list of actions, and the material summarised here does not establish the status of each one.
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