Can horses recognize people and voices?

A study was made to know if horses recognize people and voice people they rub shoulders with frequently or not. To sump up, researcher work on the fact horses can or not make the difference between somebody they know and someone they don't know.

From that study it results that when a horse is in front of two people who are calling him, the horse turn his head to the side of the familiar voice and so towards the familiar face. He is not interested at the first time by the unfamiliar people. So we can consider them very grateful and smart.
If the unfamiliar person use his voice to catch the attention of the horse, it will take a longer time to achieve to interest the horse and when it is the case, the horse will take a look at him just for a briefly moment...

According to that study, mares performed the recognition task better than geldings.

To conclude, horses make people seem important if they are familiar to them and in the other case it will take time it needs to take up an important place in the heart of the horse. It explains the really beautiful relations it can exist between a horse and his rider.

When I take on board what it is said in that article I can do a coming closer with the relation I maintain with my horse. My horse is grateful by period of time. There are period he will be very happy to see me. He shows me that by a whinny when I just go out from my car, I park not far from the box, and this whinny means "Hello, I'm happy to see! Come see me and look after me pleaaasee!!" So cute. But other time he doesn't care when I come visit him. He just look after his food and doesn't want I interrupt him in his occupations.
I have nothing to complain about, he is all the same a very grateful horse and I won't exchange him for nothing else in the world.

Source: http://www.thehorse.com/articles/31849/can-horses-recognize-people-and-voices