Janet L Jones, PhD

Like most horses, True finds music relaxing, lowering his head and softening his eyelids when it’s played. Relaxation is excellent for health, but it also aids performance partly because it enhances learning.

Those of you who have read Horse Brain, Human Brain know that scientific research verifies these claims. In one study, 30 racehorses were housed in a barn where background music was played for five hours every afternoon. 40 of their peers were housed in a barn on the same ranch where there was no music. Other conditions—feed, exercise, companionship, cleanliness, staff, and handling—were the same in both barns.

Within one month, the horses exposed to music developed significantly lower heart rates and won their races more often. This effect lasted for three months, after which the horses became accustomed to the daily music and it no longer enhanced their performance. But three months at the right time in a horse’s learning curve can make all the difference. And getting accustomed to relaxation is a great benefit to any animal who has to live in a human world.

True tells me with his body language that the type of music is critical. Horses relax in the presence of background music that is harmonious rather than dissonant and doesn’t change dramatically in volume or pitch. Metallica, Stravinsky, and Beethoven are best left inside your  house or car. Techno and electronic dance music are best left in the nightclub. But in the barn, many forms of soft rock, country, folk, and easy classical music will help your horse calm down.

When I was young and dinosaurs roamed the earth, our radio played softly all day in the barn. The horses became nervous when it was turned off in the daytime. Nowadays, daylong barn music is less common, partly because many humans now listen to music individually—with earbuds or headphones, for example—rather than collectively.

Music helps True and his buddies accept indoor arenas and other scary places, too. It’s natural for horses to be nervous the first few times they are ridden in such artificial areas. Playing some easy music in the background helps them relax. It also masks those scary little noises that indoor arenas tend to produce—the tick of warmth when sunshine expands the roof material, the whoosh of ice moving on the roof, the whine of wind outdoors.

Gentle background music relaxes people, too. Goodbye barn drama; Hello, calm. Try it sometime. True likes music a lot, and your horse probably will, too.