Help! Virtue Profiles and Horses for Courses

Glen Pettigrove addresses the proportionality principle in ethics, the principle that “our actions, attitudes, or emotions should be proportional to the degree of value present in the object or events to which they are responding” [p. 1]. He argues this is inconsistent with some familiar features of common-sense morality. In response, he brings virtuous character into the picture, a move we support but wish to modify. We show that certain helping actions should be guided by whether one has the virtue profile most suited to the situation from amongst a surrounding network of people

Horses for courses

The film 'War Horse' reminded me of previous prejudices and an episode where I met veterinary surgeon Hunteler. We suddenly came to realise that in late 1942, during the 2nd battle of El Alamein, he was looking after the horses of Rommel’s army on one hillside, while medical officer Caldwell, my late father, was tending the wounded on the opposing hillside

Utah 4-H Stadium Jumping

This publication outlines details of stadium jumping courses for horses

The laterality of the gallop gait in Thoroughbred racehorses

<div><p>Laterality can be observed as side biases in locomotory behaviour which, in the horse, manifest <i>inter alia</i> as forelimb preferences, most notably in the gallop. The current study investigated possible leading-leg preferences at the population and individual level in Thoroughbred racehorses (n = 2095) making halt-to-gallop transitions. Videos of flat races in the UK (n = 350) were studied to record, for each horse, the lead-leg preference of the initial stride into gallop from the starting stalls. Races from clockwise (C) and anti-clockwise (AC) tracks were chosen alternately at random to ensure equal representation. Course direction, horse age and sex, position relative to the inside rail and finishing position were also noted. On C courses, the left/right ratio was 1.15, which represents a significant bias to the left (z = –2.29, p = 0.022), while on AC courses it was 0.92 (z = 0.51, p = 0.610). In both course directions, there was no significant difference between winning horses that led with the left leading leg versus the right (C courses, z = –1.32, p = 0.19 and AC courses, z = –0.74, p = 0.46). Of the 2,095 horses studied 51.26% led with their L fore and 48.74% with their R, with no statistically significant difference (z = -1.16, p = 0.25). Therefore, there was no evidence of a population level motor laterality. Additionally, 22 male and 22 female horses were randomly chosen for repeated measures of leading leg preference. A laterality index was calculated for each of the 44 horses studied using the repeated measures: 22 exhibited right laterality (of which two were statistically significant) and 21 exhibited left laterality (eight being statistically significant); one horse was ambilateral. Using these data, left lateralized horses were more strongly lateralized on an individual level than the right lateralized horses (t = 2.28, p = 0.03, DF = 34) and mares were more left lateralized than males (t = 2.4, p = 0.03, DF = 19).</p></div

Courses for Horses, The In-Side Track, Part II

At the 2013 NBEA conference we introduced and presented our paper “Courses for Horses, Making Change Stick in the Workplace” and we laid out the framework for our systemic cybernetically informed process model to enable organizations to achieve second order change (Alanson, 1971) or “change that sticks”. We also addressed issues of language (Koestler, 1979) and currency (Llopis, 2012)