Vast sums of money are invested in training racehorses, yet race earnings rarely cover training costs. The ability to accurately predict potential racing performance prior to training would be advantageous. Although a link between equine behaviour and later racing success has been suggested, no single measure has yet been identified, mainly due to the complex relationships between behavioural attributes, particularly those of a social nature. The influence of gender is also unclear. According to The Mental Health Model of Sport Performance a degeneration in mental state is reflected by a decline in performance. The success of over 70% of human athletes was identified using behavioural measures of personality. Reportedly equine ‘winners’ are ‘calm’ whilst ‘losers’ are ‘aroused’. Such equine ‘reactivity ‘ (‘temperament’) has traditionally been investigated using contrived experiments. This study aimed to carefully examine equine social activity by exploring multiple aspects of social behaviour whilst avoiding the restrictive concept of dominance.