On June 7, understanding of the movement of a horse made significant strides with the opening of the Mary Anne McPhail Equine Performance Center at Michigan State University (MSU). This 18,000 square-foot, state-of-the-art facility will allow top veterinary researchers and specialized engineers to study the movement of the horse in good health, and also when there are problems.

Hilary Clayton, BVMS, PhD, is well known for her gait analysis studies (see The Horse, September 1999). She arrived in 1997 from Saskatchewan, Canada, as the first Mary Anne McPhail Dressage Chair in Equine Sports Medicine at MSU. Until now, all gait analysis studies were made either on a treadmill, or with a force plate in a small work area. The studies were revolutionary, but limited by space. Videos from the previous facility show that sometimes horses, when moving across a forceplate for computerized analysis, had to “slam on the brakes” before hitting the barnâs wall. Now Clayton and her team of researchers have a larger, more specialized work area in which to advance their study of equine locomotion.

The cost of the center is $2.5 million, all paid for by private donations. Some of the features include a 70-by-130-foot riding arena, a video analysis system, a large forceplate, a treatment room, a farrier center, research suites, conference rooms, and office space. There also are stalls and a hard surface lunging arena.

“The surface is blacktop asphalt, unfinished, with a slight grade to the center of the room,” Clayton said. Clayton explained that lamenesses are better spotted when the horse is worked on a circle