New Insight on How Surfaces Impact Horses’ Limbs

Researchers found that hard surfaces, shallow footing depths, and compacted footing could increase horses’ injury risk.
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A few years ago, French researchers developed a dynamometric horse shoe—essentially, a pressure-sensitive shoe they hoped would provide useful information about how footing affects our horses’ health. And there’s good news from those researchers: The shoe has done just that.

At the 2016 International Society for Equitation Science (ISES) conference, held June 23-26 in Saumur, France, the Sequisol research team was back to share what their dynamometric shoe, complete with high-speed kinematic filming, is revealing.

“We have demonstrated that training on a hard track does increase injury risk, as seen by correlations between injuries and the various forces and angles of the lower leg during movement across the surface,” said presenter Nathalie Crevier-Denoix, DVM, PhD, Dipl. ACVSMR, of the Equine Biomechanics and Musculoskeletal Pathology department of the Ecole Nationale Vétérinaire d’Alfort and the French National Institute of Agronomic Research.

While this might seem intuitive to many riders, the injury risk related to hard surfaces has not previously been shown in a prospective study, Crevier-Denoix said. And no research team has ever been able to show the biomechanical “how” and “why” of these injuries until now

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Passionate about horses and science from the time she was riding her first Shetland Pony in Texas, Christa Lesté-Lasserre writes about scientific research that contributes to a better understanding of all equids. After undergrad studies in science, journalism, and literature, she received a master’s degree in creative writing. Now based in France, she aims to present the most fascinating aspect of equine science: the story it creates. Follow Lesté-Lasserre on Twitter @christalestelas.

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