Equine back pain affects a significant portion, approximately 35%, of horses used for riding, often attributed to poor-fitting saddles.
Dr. Jorn Cheney, a researcher specializing in animal locomotion at the University of Southampton, UK, has developed an innovative technique to address horse back pain from saddles. By employing a novel method for scanning horses in motion, Dr. Cheney has successfully created an advanced saddle-map that can alleviate back pain in horses.
Traditionally, saddle fitting for horses has been conducted while the animals are standing still. However, this fails to account for the dynamic changes in saddle position during the horse’s movement.
Dr. Cheney explains, “We were surprised to see that the shape of the standing animal was substantially different from the stride-averaged shape of the moving animal. 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.
The outcome of this research is a comprehensive “saddle-map” that identifies optimal areas for placing saddles to minimize the likelihood of pain or injury for the horse. One specific region, known as the withers, located just above and behind the shoulder blades, was found to move up and down a few centimeters during movement compared to when the horse is at rest.
This saddle-map delineates the most and least mobile regions of a horse’s back during walking and trotting, which can aid in the improvement of saddle design and fitting techniques.
Dr. Cheney elaborates, “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. 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.”
Furthermore, this research reveals that the least mobile areas of a horse’s back are the most suitable for distributing pressure. Conversely, repeated application of high pressure and soft tissue movement in the most mobile areas can lead to pain and tissue damage.
Dr. Cheney emphasizes the practical implications of this research, stating, “Among the outcomes of this research will be new design and fitting guidance for saddlers.”
He collaborates closely with master saddlers to ensure that the new fitting guidelines align with professional saddling approaches and industry standards.
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