Nearly 35% of horses experience equine back pain, which is frequently linked to inadequate saddle fitting. Dr. Jorn Cheney, an animal locomotion researcher at the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom, has developed an innovative technique to scan horses in motion. This groundbreaking method has empowered Dr. Cheney to generate an improved saddle-map, offering the potential to alleviate back pain in horses.
Currently, fitting saddles to horses is done on standing animals, but that doesn't account for how the saddle will change position as the horse moves. Dr. Jorn Cheney ad his team presented their findings at the 2023 SEB Centenary Conference in Edinburgh.
"We were surprised to see that the shape of the standing animal was substantially different from the stride-averaged shape of the moving animal," says Dr. Cheney. "We expected a difference, just not to the extent that we saw."
To measure the changes in the horses’ back shape, Dr. Cheney and colleagues filmed the animals as they walked and trotted, utilizing an array of cameras. They then utilized videogrammetry, a technique for tracking limb movement, to reconstruct the saddle region as it transformed throughout the stride.
Horse moving through Camera Setup - Credit: Dr. Jorn Cheney
With these measurements, the team created a "saddle-map" that highlights ideal areas for saddle placement to reduce the chances of pain or injury for the horse. One area of the horse's back, known as the withers, is located just above and behind the shoulder blades and was found to move up and down a few centimeters during movement compared to standing still.
The map identified the most and least mobile areas of horse's backs while walking and trotting, which may help to improve saddle design and fitting methods.
"My research measures the shape of saddle region, as the horse walks and trots, to understand how the muscles bulge and the spine bends so that we can integrate that knowledge into better saddle design," says Dr. Cheney, "A poor interface between a saddle and a horse's back can lead to severe tissue damage in horses, even the wastage and loss of whole muscles in the back."
The research also found that the least mobile areas of the horse's back are the most appropriate for distributing pressure, while repeated application of high pressure and soft tissue movement in the most mobile areas can lead to pain and tissue damage.
“Among the outcomes of this research will be new design and fitting guidance for saddlers,” says Dr Cheney, who is working with master saddlers to ensure that the new fitting guidance is in line with professional approaches to saddling and industry philosophy.
