Product or Being? Equestrians' Emotional Attachment, Expectations and Perceived Value

The relationship between people and animals dates back thousands of years. Horses provide humans with companionship and equestrians tend to form a passionate emotional attachment towards their equine partners. As the human-horse relationship represents a working relationship, in the sense that a horse is required to perform certain tasks when asked, expectations towards him reflect different considerations than towards a household pet. Similarly, the value perception of a horse is likely to differ, dependent on rider profiles. Even though most equine enthusiasts develop a relationship with their horses over a number of years the depth and quality of that relationship must be dependent on the expectations and value perceptions the rider has towards his horse. The objective of the study was to measure Icelandic equestrians’ emotional attachment, expectations and perceived value of their Icelandic horse, along with identifying the effect of various rider profiles. A convenience sample from a population of Icelandic equestrians was collected online. The total number of responses was 556. Equestrians were divided into three segments; amateurs, non-professional competitors and professionals. The study’s findings give a reason to assume that emotional attachment to horses is generally quite high among their owners, regardless of rider profiles. A three-factor structure of perceived value was found, revealing functional value, emotional value and social value as relevant dimensions. Accordingly, value perceptions seem to differ between rider profiles. Amateurs exhibited a higher emotional value towards their horse than professionals while professionals were more likely to place further emphasis on functional value than both non-professional competitors and amateurs. There was a general agreement regarding the physical and personality expectations of the horse, indicating that those attributes are either of equally high or low importance for all riders. Consistent with previous studies, traits related to behavior were relevant to all rider profiles while expectations regarding the physical properties and performance expectations varied amongst segments. This study’s main conclusion is therefore that professionals seem to be in no way less attached to their horses even though they value their horses differently from amateurs, while non-professional competitors seem to share expectations and value perceptions with both groups. These results support the notion that horses are more likely to serve as investments for professionals and therefore retain more of an economical value for those individuals