The Lavender-Scented Horse Trailer
Can Aromatherapy Really Calm Competition Horses?
27 April 2017
Lavender is one of the most widely used — and loved — flowering plants. A member of the mint family, its oil scents countless products for humans, from perfumes to bath oils and room fresheners. The scent is a pillar of the aromatherapy industry, as well, with many medicinal applications and recommendations. But the chief effect of the scent of lavender always begins with the claim that it can be relaxing.
Horses are pretty relaxed, most of the time. But a small industry — and a good deal of controversy — exists around practices used to help high-level competition horses relax. The “calming” products, medications and techniques used are policed by testing at events for most breeds and disciplines.
The effects of lavender have not been scrutinized in depth at the scientific level in the horse world. At the stable management level, most horse caretakers love the scent of lavender, and horses don’t seem to mind it. But what effect does it really have on horses? We don’t really know; the documentation in peer-reviewed journals is scarce, even if the products do smell heavenly.
This week, a student from Albion College in Michigan will add another study to the lavender knowledge base. The Experimental Biology 2017 meeting accepted Kylie Heitman’s poster presentation, which asks the question of whether aromatherapy may be beneficial to competition horses. The event is hosting approximately 14,000 scientists and science students this week at Chicago’s McCormick Center convention complex.
Heitman is a dressage rider who frequently transports her horse. She chose the trailering process to examine the possible effects of lavender, since the time spent in a trailer is often tense for a horse. The loud noises and confined spaces of a horse trailer and unfamiliar territory of a new show venue may cause an increase in heart rate and levels of the stress hormone cortisol. That stress may provoke unpredictable behavior and an unwillingness to perform.
Heitman’s study observed eight horses across two trips in horse trailers. During each trip, the horses were individually hauled for 15 minutes. In one trial, the animals were exposed to an air diffusion of lavender oil during transport. In the other, the horses received a diffusion of distilled water.
Heitman, who plans to study veterinary medicine after graduation from Albion, measured heart rate and blood cortisol levels before and after each animal’s hauling. She found that cortisol levels were significantly lower when the horses were exposed to lavender.
She also found a small, yet not statistically significant, decrease in the post-transport heart rate when the horses were exposed to lavender. The horses’ heart rates increased slightly after spending time in the trailer without aromatherapy.
Heitman worked with her father, Michigan veterinarian Eric Heitman, on the research project, according to Albion College.
According to the American Physiological Society, which is one of the sponsoring organizations of the Experimental Biology meeting, these results warrant more study into lavender as another means for stress reduction in competition horses.
Heitman presented “The Use of Equine Lavender Aromatherapy to Suppress Stress” in a poster session yesterday.
Another study on lavender and horses, by researchers at McNeese State University in Louisiana, was published in 2014 in the Journal of Equine Veterinary Science. “Effect of Lavender Aromatherapy on Acute-Stressed Horses” by Charles Ferguson et al used a blasting airhorn to induce stress in horses confined in a stable. Following the blast, horses breathed in either humidified air or air infused with lavender.
Heart rate and respiration were measured before and after the stress test in Louisiana, and the researchers recorded results showing that lavender aromatherapy “can significantly decrease heart rate after an acute stress response and signal a shift from the sympathetic nervous control from the parasympathetic system”.
