Striding toward positive equine well-being: how to enhance and monitor positive welfare and sleep patterns to improve health and well-being in horses

CAFRE will be delivering an online webinar on Monday 15^th April at 7:30-8:30pm with Dr Rachel Annan and Dr Kym Griffin presenting the topics of their respective PhD studies followed by a discussion and questions from the audience chaired by BHS National Manager for Ireland, Susan Spratt.  

Dr Rachel Annan has over 20 year’s experience in the international horseracing industry and completed her PhD in 2023 at University of Bristol, School of Veterinary Medicine.  Her topic area was racehorse welfare and the development of a welfare assessment protocol for measuring racehorse welfare. This welfare assessment has been trialed by industry assessors to gather population level racehorse welfare data. The welfare assessment has also been used to monitor the welfare of Military Working Horses. Rachel has been an equine technologist at CAFRE for over 10 years and is involved in equine industry training and knowledge transfer.

Dr Kym Griffin completed her PhD in horse sleep as a welfare indicator in 2024 through Nottingham Trent University (NTU). Kym taught on the Equine Science courses at NTU since 2016 before moving to CAFRE in 2022 to work as an equine technologist. Kym has ridden horses since childhood competing in eventing, showjumping and dressage as well as working as a groom, riding instructor and horse trainer. Her passion lies in horse behaviour and welfare education, teaching science-based horse training methods to horse owners.  

Who is the event for?

This webinar will provide participants with an overview of how to monitor wellbeing and is suitable for anyone who manages horses or has an interest in equine health and welfare, including private owners, small scale breeders, animal welfare officers, leisure riders and equine vets and nurses.

Event timetable

Each speaker will spend 15 minutes discussing their research topic and how it can be applied in a real-world setting. There will then be 30 minutes of discussion and a Question and Answer session Chaired by Susan Spratt of BHS Ireland.