Horsetalk.co.nz Defensive formations are seen in horse herds, but what do they represent? Good defensive formations are the cornerstone of any winning team, and the same goes for horse herds, fresh research suggests. Researchers in Poland monitored the responses of pastured horses to predator calls. They found two distinct breed-dependent defensive formations were employed, but cannot fully explain what they represent. Iwona Janczarek and her colleagues said animal social strategies are important when avoiding predators. They hypothesized that horses, despite domestication stretching back to antiquity, would still react to the calls of predators, and demonstrate anti-predator behaviour. For their study, they played recorded vocalisations of three different predators — the howl of the grey wolf, the roar of the Arabian leopard and the barking howls of the golden jackal — to two herds comprising 10 Polish Konik horses and 10 Arabian horses.