But, according to ground-breaking new research, they really shouldn’t: The horse may bear a grudge. Scientists at Sussex and Portsmouth Universities have established that horses can not only read emotions, but can then remember the emotional expression of humans. The research team conducted controlled experiments whereby domestic horses were presented with a photo of an angry or happy human face. Even the short-term exposure to the picture was found enough to generate clear differences in the subsequent reaction of the horse when it saw the human in the flesh. “What’s very striking is that this happened after just briefly viewing a photo of the person.”

Source: National Post April 27, 2018 14:15 UTC