Dr Luke's Research

Dr Luke completed her PhD at Central Queensland University in the school of psychology. Her research covered horse welfare, horse behaviour, human safety, rider satisfaction and rider motivation. As well as being among the first researchers to demonstrate the relationship between horse welfare and rider safety, she is also one of the first to include when horses are ridden into their welfare assessment.

On top of horse welfare expertise, she has also researched human behaviour change and can apply this knowledge to help your organisation successfully navigate the change needed to create a better future for equestrian sport.

Research with real-world impact

When Dr Luke published her first paper, on Christmas Day 2021, things started with a bang! She immediately had requests for interviews and her work was all over social media.

Twelve months later, her Christmas paper New insights into ridden horse behaviour, horse welfare and horse-related safety was among the top 5 downloaded papers in the prestigious journal Applied Animal Behaviour Science.

This was followed up in 2023, with her paper, Bit use and its relevance for rider safety, rider satisfaction and horse welfare in equestrian sport achieving the same top 5 most downloaded paper, again in the leading animal welfare academic journal Applied Animal Behaviour Science.

Her fresh, collaborative approach to improving horse welfare has created a huge amount of interest among academics and equestrians alike.

You can download Dr Luke's papers using the links below.