Foals play alone, with their mothers, and with each other—all crucial aspects of learning how to become a socially mature horse. Social play, which is more common among colts than fillies, allows young horses to bond while learning to temper their strengths and weaknesses among playmates. This critical early socialization phase can help the animals train for a healthy social life, said Elisabetta Palagi, MS, PhD, a comparative ethologist at the University of Pisa, in Italy, during her presentation at the 2025 Horse XP Experience for Wellness Conference, held March 15-16, in San Marcello Piteglio, Italy.
“These early games really reflect the sociobiology of the species,” she said. “This means that if we want to have horses who develop correctly with a good behavioral repertoire, they need to be with other horses from the very first weeks of life.”
Many mammals play with each other, whether with members of their own species or other species, which can help the animals develop their motor, social, and cognitive abilities, she said.
Observing Young Horse Social Behavior
To understand horses’ play interactions better, Palagi and her fellow researchers observed 13 horses born into three bands within an experimental semi-feral herd on 50 acres of open land at the Parco Regionale Migliarino-San Rossore-Massaciuccoli in Tuscany. The team filmed the foals twice a week, from birth to 6 months, resulting in nearly 130 hours of video footage.
They found that very young horses, up to about 4 weeks old, regularly engaged in solitary play, meaning they played alone with a rock, plant, water, bird, or other objects and nonequid wildlife. “Solitary play is an exploration of the environment—a testing of one’s own abilities, in comparison to the physical environment,” Palagi said.
These young horses also engaged in playfulness with their own dams by jumping and running around them and pulling at their manes and tails—although the dams generally ignored them. “It’s like when we come home from work and our children want to play with us like we’re some kind of toy, and they’re making these desperate attempts to involve us, and all the while we don’t react but just sit on the sofa,” she said. “It’s more or less the same thing.”
Independent play gradually waned among the foals over the first three months of life, she said.
Observing Social Play in Young Horses
A third kind of play—social play—did not slow down, said Palagi. Starting from shortly after birth, foals engaged in galloping, biting, and play-fighting with other foals. The youngsters also nipped at and pestered potential playmates, even if those playmates didn’t respond. Contrary to the other kinds of play, social play continued well after weaning, she said.
This doesn’t mean the young foals were figuring out their hierarchy, she explained. On the contrary, foals of dominant mothers—which, based on previous research, likely inherited their rank from their mothers—visibly restrained themselves. When playing with foals of lower-ranking mares, they played longer and more gently while putting themselves in more vulnerable positions.
“Dominant foals ascertain and challenge themselves in some way, in relation to others, and are perfectly able to implement self-control, also called self-restraint, to ensure that the play session is maintained in balance and to be able to continue playing,” Palagi said.
“You might think the dominant individuals have the upper hand and are being clever, but, instead, no, dominant individuals control their movements, leaving space for the weaker ones,” she said. “What this tells us is that playing is extremely important for the subordinates as well as for the dominant individuals.”
Social grooming helped keep play interactions low-key and amicable, said Palagi. Breaks in long play sessions could help “de-escalate the vigorousness of the interaction,” she explained, which would not only help prevent true aggressiveness but also engender friendliness between the players. “These animals use grooming as a signal to say, ‘Okay, now let’s calm down,’” she said.
The researchers observed social play far more commonly in young males than young females and, contrary to solitary play and play with mom, it didn’t dwindle as foals reached a critical age of developing independence from their dams at about 4 months of age. “They’ll need to compete with other males later in life, so this ‘wrestling game’ becomes extremely important for them,” Palagi said.
They saw no sex-related differences in solitary play and play with dams, “probably because those are useful growth phases for both sexes,” she explained.
Take-Home Message
The findings highlight the importance of prioritizing social interactions among horses from their earliest age. “The ability to fine-tune the playful sessions by juveniles can have important outcomes later in life, when animals need to cope with social uncertainty and possibly risky situations,” said Palagi.
