Gait Analysis of Horses

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Gait and movement pattern are essential to the horse, whether it's a question of the horse's well-being, competition riding or breeding. For the first time, new research made in collaboration between University of Copenhagen and The Royal Veterinary College in the United Kingdom makes it possible to use sensors to accurately measure a horse's movements and to quantify limb movement outside the traditional gait laboratory. This provides veterinarians as well as breeders and trainers with a number of new possibilities. The new results have just been published in the Journal of Biomechanics.


Horses who develop a limp are one of the major sources of frustration for horse owners as well as vets. The same applies for Wobblers disease (ataxia) where growth abnormalities or articular process joint osteoarthritis put pressure on the spinal cord causing ataxic gait. At least one in a hundred horses develop Wobblers disease, which often leads to the horse having to be euthanased. Both lameness and Wobblers disease have an effect on a horses gait, and so far veterinarians have only been able to study horse movement in a gait-laboratory, which commonly only allows study of a few steps at a time on a straight line.

Using inertial sensors; small sensors containing technology like what you find in a cellphone, i.e. gyroscopes, accelerometers and magnetometers, veterinarian and PhD from the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences at University of Copenhagen, Dr. Emil Olsen and his collaborators from Dr. Thilo Pfau's research group at Royal Veterinary College in the United Kingdom have managed to measure horse movement (displacement) as well as the timing of the hoof's contact with the ground very accurately.

"Our previous research shows that inertial sensors placed right above the horse's fetlock joint can be used to reliably determine the timing of the hoof's contact with the ground. Furthermore, we're a big step closer to being able to measure movement during training of a horse under real-life conditions, because we have also managed to validate the method against the reference standard motion capture, and this provides us with tools to evaluate the development and change in coordination and symmetry simultaneously," Doctor of Veterinary Medicine and PhD Emil Olsen explains.