The equines vision have many curiosities, such as the size of their huge eyes, exceeded only by whales, ostriches and seals. The location of their eyes allows them to have a fairly wide vision of 340°, and it can be monocular or binocular.
Horses can distinguish colors, contrary to the myth of grayscale vision, although they cannot identify a large spectrum of colors. Red and green are usually colors that aren’t distinguishable from each other.
Even though horses are diurnal animals, their night vision is good, because their eyes have a high sensitivity to light, although the adaptation time is slow, and they also process 25 images per second.
Another particularity of the equine eyes is that they can reflect stress through blinking, with six contractions per minute being a possible sign of stress.
When horses are well trained, they are taught to suppress their natural stress responses. While every handler recognizes when their horse is restless, many times they can suppress stress in a profound way, and it can only be reflected in their eyes.
So it is important to always check the equine’s eyes as a non-invasive way to check their physical condition and mood, to confirm that they are in excellent condition, and to have a healthy and strong horse.
