It sounds like you have a very exuberant gang. My young super hot and spooky horse goes out with a herd of quiet guys and even at his most pent up, he confines himself to some leaping (directly up in the air) and bucking in place. The oldsters just roll their eyes at him. He’s got plenty of space, just has no penchant for antics (sometimes I think I’d feel better if he DID run some of that off).
Let me state that differently then - it does not necessarily 100% follow that they will run around. 
If you could quote them it would be great, because the only study that I can find that is useful is the Malaysia study. I’m still looking but what I’m finding are a lot of studies done with moderately poor controls, and very few that compare “apples to apples” with different management types.
Humans choosing to force subjectivity for their own benefit isn’t the same something actually being subjective.
You wouldn’t think it would be subjective whether or not earth is flat, but apparently for some people it is.
Ahh except scientific studies (and…well…loads of pictures from space) does show that earth is definitely not flat. Which is why I’m leaning on scientific studies and not on human perception of moral imperatives. And why I’m also not willing to accept the argument of “I wouldn’t like it as a human therefore horses won’t like it”.
If we’re going to put that particular argument to bed, we need to understand how equine needs rank, and then what fulfills them.
Literally my point…
I, for one, have never said that I think horses should be turned out because “I wouldn’t like to live in a stall.” I must have missed that in earlier comments.
Right - which is why I went hunting for studies, but they didn’t show what people were asserting. So I’m still looking for good studies in order to tease it out.
If you’ve got links, I’ll happily review them, but so far “horses need free exercise” is not definitively proven. So far what I see is:
Horses need to move a lot to maintain fitness
Horses need to eat frequently to maintain health
Cortisol levels drop when horses have social interaction
Horses should be in pens larger than .08 acre per horse in group turnout situations
I’ve linked a bunch of them above. I’m on page 10 of Elsevier reviewing as many as I can find, but haven’t
found a ton.
Someone made it wayyyy earlier related to their concept of freedom and how they wouldn’t like to have only controlled exercise ergo horses have the same concept (not in the conversation since I’ve been involved…way earlier).
Well, by this logic, literally nothing is definitively proven, so everyone just do whatever you want. Common sense be damned!
Horses don’t need to be a 4-6 on the Body Condition Scale. By all means, let’s not give a second glance to those 2s and 3s kickin it out in the world - they’re alive aren’t they?!
But horses being a 2-3 being totally healthy ISN’T borne out by the science - there are studies that show that having a lower body condition scale can cause vulnerabilities to parasites etc. Which is why the scale is as it is. It didn’t magically occur out of thin air or someone say “oh, it’s a good thing to have a fat horse”.
Common sense IS subjective by definition. So yes, when you say something is common sense, you are saying it’s subjective. I’m trying to find the objective studies that should influence our care of horses. And so far, the studies aren’t backing up what the loudest posters are saying.
What am finding is that people get their knickers in a knot over things that are entirely subjective but they are pretending are objective. And that’s kind of a problem.
If the line in the sand is group turnout I guess we might have to geld a whole bunch of stallions. Hard and fast “rules” aren’t feasible for every horse. I think we all know what’s certainly closer to ideal. You make concessions based on the animal, your climate, health, etc from there.
Stalling doesn’t have to mean isolation. A lot of the European type stalls let horses see and even touch over/through the stall. Even some pipe corral type stalls do the same. Just pointing out again how hard it is to make bright line statements.
Here are some more interesting studies, for those who are now geeking out (like I am):
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0168159106003212 this one indicates that horses who have exercise, move less in paddocks - I know this is a shocker.
This one looks closer - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0168159115000945#abs0010 but it’s citations include one study in which they list 3 factors (diet and access to forage, social interaction, and then they say free movement, but they didn’t control for it).
And I’ve gotten to the end of the studies that I could find related to turnout in any way shape or form. There was one that said police horses were less nervous if they had some turnout prior to duty but it did not control for controlled exercise (no pun intended). Now I really should get back to the day job 
By the way, on that note - the studies do support the use of straw as bedding and say that sawdust decreases welfare - https://www.researchgate.net/publication/262384167_Effects_of_Bedding_Material_on_the_Lying_Behavior_in_Stabled_Horses
There are a whole lot of American stables thinking they have the corner on equine welfare, but using sawdust in the stalls. 
but that’s a different thread entirely!
Ooh I finally found something - https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/10888700701555576 I don’t know if you can see it but I actually bought the article because now I’m just seriously invested.
The importance of social contact is evidenced by the negligible rate of stereotypies in stall-tied horses such as cavalry mounts (Houpt & Ogilvie-Graham, 2002) and mares used for urine collection to make estrogen supplements (Houpt, Houpt, & Johnson, 2001; Flannigan & Stookey, 2002). Presumably, stereotypy prevalence would be high in horses where movement is so restricted. Apparently, this confinement is offset by the opportunity for visual and tactile social interaction with conspecifics.
They also speak about the need for continuous feeding (cited related to ponies in studies) and human interaction, as well as the danger of group turnout for show horses, which was also well documented in another study.
So - to conclude, what I can find is that horses need social interaction, continual feeding, and movement to be healthy, which pasture CAN provide, but that can also be provided through other management means such as slow feeders, exercise, and well designed barns that allow for social interaction.
I find that a bit of a stretch, personally.
Feathers have been used for personal adornment since the Neanderthals.
Here’s an example post-dating the Neanderthals, but still fairly early on:
This works great. Turning and spinning is flat out dangerous and I don’t tolerate it at all.
I am always amused by the people saying their horses have ulcers, or ulcer this, ulcer that. In a lot of cases people don’t even do the damn scope and just assume, treat, whatever. And half the time they use nonsense ‘treatments’.
I literally just scoped a horse today that has been on stall rest for months w/controlled exercise… no ulcers. This horse was used to living out 24/7 too. I was surprised BUT… horse is in a stall where he can interact with neighbor, corner stall with 2 windows and I feed a lot of hay.
In the end. Everyone thinks their way is the best way. I think the worst people are the ones that blanket care for everything, and think that all horses needs are the same. In the end horses are their own selves and just like people… nothing is going to work for everyone.
Personally, I don’t think it’s my place to say as a white woman.
Square root of 342 m^2 is 18.5 m, so that area would correspond to roughly half of one end of a small dressage ring (20m x 20m).
Right, per-horse. So, if you took a small arena-sized paddock (say 60x120) according to that study it’s adequate for 2 horses (roughly, there’s some translation from square feet to square meters).
Oh, I’m an idiot, I was trying to do that the hardest way possible - so 1 acre is equivalent to 4046 square meters, so that is saying that you could pasture horses together at a “stocking rate” of 11 per acre, and that would be adequate to reduce herd aggression in pastured horses.
That’s a rather astonishing figure. I would have thought the requirements for actual groups would have been much higher.
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