There’s more than meets the eye

If you truly want to gain your horse’s trust and improve performance, you need to understand how your horse sees the world. Especially in the training of young (jumping) horses, it’s essential that their introduction to obstacles and jumping is as smooth as possible. In this article, you’ll learn more about equine vision and which colors of poles are best used during training. We also provide practical tips to help you, the rider, guide your horse to see and jump more easily.

Color Perception and Brightness of Colors

A horse’s eyes are up to eight times larger than human eyes—the largest of any land mammal. Their eye shape and placement differ significantly from ours, which influences how they perceive their surroundings in terms of field of view, color, brightness, and depth.

Let’s first look at the differences between human and horse vision. You likely learned in school that humans have trichromatic vision. We have three types of cone cells in our eyes, each reacting to a specific range of light wavelengths—blue, red, and yellow-green—allowing us to perceive a wide spectrum of colors.

Horses, like dogs and red-green colorblind humans, have dichromatic vision. They only have two types of cones, allowing them to perceive colors made up of yellows and blues, along with white and shades of gray. As a result, they see colors less vividly than we do.

Field of Vision and Depth Perception

Due to the placement of their eyes on the sides of their heads, horses have an incredibly wide field of vision—340 to 350 degrees out of a possible 360. In comparison, humans see about 140 degrees. A horse’s field of view extends from the tip of its nose in a near-complete circle around to its hips.

Each of a horse’s eyes sees a different image—called monocular vision—which helps the horse understand its surroundings. However, directly in front of the nose and behind the tail are blind spots. In the overlapping field directly in front, a horse has binocular vision, which allows for depth perception—just like humans.

You may have heard the myth that “if a horse sees something with the left eye, it won’t recognize it with the right eye.” That would suggest that the brain hemispheres don’t communicate—which is not true. Horses, like nearly all mammals, have a corpus callosum, a brain structure that allows both hemispheres to share information.

So why does my horse sometimes spook on the way back, but not on the way out—or vice versa?

There are many possible reasons: changes in lighting, shadows, or contrast can make an object look completely different. There might also be a sound that we don’t notice but your horse does.

Horses that have seen a wide range of objects in various settings generally have more trust in their rider and react more calmly to unfamiliar situations.

Although a horse’s field of vision is broader than ours, their vertical vision is more limited. They see sharpest in the center of their field, so when something is high or low, they need to raise or lower their head to bring the object into focus.

Despite their wide field of view, horses have less visual acuity than humans. While humans with normal vision can see clearly at about 6 meters (20 feet), horses are typically rated between 6/9 and 6/18.

A horse with 6/9 vision can only see an object clearly at 6 meters that a human can see at 9 meters.

A horse with 6/18 vision sees clearly at 6 meters what we can see at 18 meters—200% closer.

Imagine how your horse sees an approaching jump. While it’s clear to you, your horse may see a blurred image—even in daylight. Horses with 6/9 vision tend to excel in jumping because they can focus on upcoming obstacles from farther away.

A horse’s vision plays a major role in how they approach obstacles. Where we clearly see a jump straight ahead, it may be harder for a horse to detect. If a horse is afraid of something, we often walk them straight toward it—but the closer they get from directly in front, the more it disappears from view due to their blind spot. This can cause the horse to spook or hesitate. It’s often better to let your horse look at the object from the side first.

How to Apply This in Training

Considering a horse’s dichromatic vision, it’s best to begin training with white, yellow, and blue poles. These colors are the most distinguishable from the background and the ground, helping the horse better judge takeoff, landing, and distance.

Light blue poles are more visible than dark blue ones.

However, blue can disappear against the sky—especially at the top of a jump with no contrasting background (like a hedge).

In these cases, yellow offers the highest color and brightness contrast.

However, yellow becomes harder to see in deep shadows, which often form under jumps. In that case, blue or white provides better visibility—such as over a blue water jump.

In Conclusion:

Use blue poles as the top rail, if there is a contrasting background.

In other cases, use a yellow pole as the top rail.

Blue and white poles are ideal for ground lines.

While a horse can see the jump while approaching, it loses sight of it during takeoff due to the angle of its nose. It jumps based on what it saw on approach and on memory—not vision during the leap. This helps explain why horses sometimes misjudge a jump or land inside the obstacle.

You may also notice horses tilting or raising their heads slightly before a jump to get a better view. Keep this in mind—it reminds us that it’s your responsibility as a rider to guide your horse as clearly as possible to each jump.

To best support your horse during cavaletti work or jumping, we recommend starting with blue and yellow poles. Click here to view our blue/yellow training range: https://www.nedlandic.nl/142-paardentraining-blauw-en-geel

Blog by Leane van Ark