The herd is at the heart of everything we do at Graveney Equine. Our approach is built around the belief that horses thrive in stable, socially rich environments where they can express natural behaviours, build meaningful bonds, and simply be horses.
Over time, the herd naturally evolves. We welcome new faces and say goodbye to old friends. But through these changes, a strong and steady core remains. This core group provides a sense of continuity and calm, offering grounding support to newcomers as they find their place. We often see horses arriving in a state of uncertainty and, through gentle integration and herd companionship, begin to blossom.
We actively support the development of long-term relationships within the herd. Social bonds are not just a luxury; they are vital to equine emotional wellbeing. Because of this, we do not accept short-term placements into the main herd. To us, it’s not fair to the herd, or the individual horse, to continually form and fracture friendships. Instead, we prioritise stability, allowing connections to grow and deepen over time.
Watching these friendships form and flourish is one of the great joys of our work. Whether it’s a quiet mutual grooming session, shared shade under a tree, or the playfulness of a gallop around the track, the herd dynamic here is a living example of what’s possible when horses are given the space, time, and safety to just be themselves.
Our horses tend to form friendship groups that focus on around five individuals. These horses form the core of their relationships, but every horse has satellite friendships with almost all the other horses in the overall herd. This is what forms the basis of the calm environment where they always have a social group they feel at ease with. We will often go through periods where we close to new horses for several months at a time to allow the bonds within the herd to grow and deepen and for everyone to settle and become truly comfortable in their environment.
The herd should be viewed as the ‘machine’ and the horses as the ‘essential cogs’ of that machine. Without companions, horses are not able to function fully as evolution enabled them to. This is something we strongly believe in and do our best to fully facilitate.
Introductions at Graveney Equine are specific to each horse that joins us but follow the same general set of stages and protocol.
During the initial isolation period we are slowly working on getting to know the new horse and gaining their trust (this is very important for the following stages). We then proceed with ‘over-the-fence’ introductions with selected horses. From knowing the horses already in the herd so well, we are able to watch these interactions and start to place an educated guess how the new horse and the rest of the herd will react to each other. We then allow the whole herd access to meet the new horse over the fence. It is worth noting that because this is done in a very low key way, the horses don’t all charge over at once, they come along in dribs and drabs as they happen to be on their way past.
This is how they stay for a further 1-2 weeks generally. We then start taking the new horse for short walks around the main track so they can familiarise themselves with the layout and investigate any spooky objects. This is done with the majority of the herd shut in other areas and just a few of the quieter members out on track. Again, we watch the interactions.
If required, we will spend time walking some of the bigger personalities around together to help them gain some perspective on up close and personal interactions. We find this takes the offensiveness out of the interactions and makes the process go more smoothly.
Our main aim is to reduce all risks as much as possible although we know we can never prevent injury 100% of the time, we do everything in our power to create a positive and safe experience for them all as it is in everyone’s interest for that to happen.
Eventually, we are in a place where the new horse is out on track with the rest of the herd. But the process doesn’t stop here. We may carry on taking the new horse out for periods of time to help them, or the established herd process and relax again. We monitor closely what is happening and that everyone is settling and coping. This monitoring continues indefinitely but after 2-3 weeks we are usually at a much lower risk of overt issues.
Over the following couple of months, we see relationships develop and change and bonds start to be built. By around six months we see real, meaningful, friendships formed within the herd.
Introducing horses to a herd in a responsible and ethical way is not a short process. We take this very seriously and only progress when we are happy that the horses are giving us the right signs to do so. It may seem strange to some that we take such care over our introductions, but with the herd being the most important thing to each horse as an individual, it would be a disservice to what we are trying to achieve to do it any other way.