A preliminary study of the effects of the number of consecutive days of training and days off on foal recall

Abstract It is critically important that early foal handling and training takes into account foals cognitive abilities and ability to cope with intense work without becoming overly aroused and fearful. Foals may experience days off during planned training programmes due to owner/trainers circumstances and not as an intended part of the training schedule. Recent research has suggested that days off within training schedules may be beneficial to training outcomes. This study aimed to determine how the incorporation of days off during initial training influences foal learning outcomes. Twenty Thoroughbred foals underwent a six to seven session training program. Foals were blocked by age ( 8weeks) and randomly allocated to either training condition A (trained for two consecutive days followed by a rest day, two more training days, rest day, finishing with up to three more consecutive training days) or training condition B (trained for four consecutive days, two rest days, finishing with up to three more consecutive training days). Qualified Foal NZ Ltd trainers used negative reinforcement to train foals to ‘Go’ (cranial pressure on the halter until foal steps forward) and ‘Stop’ (caudal pressure until the foal stops) from first, the left and second, the right side. Session length was determined by progress made and did not exceed 25 minutes. Training success was assessed by number of signals required (recall) for the foal to perform the task in the next training day. Biting behaviors exhibited by foals were instantaneously recorded during training sessions. Recall data for all tasks were non-parametric (left ‘Go’ Anderson Darling=6.32; ‘Stop’ Anderson Darling =2.89; right ‘Go’ Anderson Darling =4.24; and ‘Stop’ Anderson Darling =6.10; all P 0.05). Younger foals ( 0.05).. On the basis of the findings of this study it is recommended that young foal initial training programs incorporate a day off within the first four days in order to decrease the development and occurrence of adverse behaviors such as biting.