Modern Horse Breeding

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Major Motion Pictures
(Modern Horse Breeding - page 13)

Gait analysis coming into focus as performance predictor and diagnostic tool

This month, a multitude of cameras are focused on Barcelona, where they will capture Olympic athletes in motion for sports fans worldwide. But there are also several cameras whirring away at the equestrian events with a purpose quite different. You will not see the images preserved on film by these cameras on your TV, and though they'll be viewed and reviewed many times over, it will never be to the grand strains of Olympic theme music. These video cameras are set up to record specific parts of the performances of elite equine athletes for gait analysis research by Hilary Clayton, BVMS, PhD, MRCVS, of the University of Saskatchewan, and Nancy Deuel, PhD, of the University of Maryland. Both will be looking for gait characteristics that identify superior performance.

Together with several scientists from Spain, Clayton is videotaping the most difficult of dressage movements: the piaffe, a stylized trot in place, and the passage, a very slow trot with exaggerated elevation of the limbs. The Olympic contenders must execute two passage-piaffe-passage sequences in the center of the arena and their performances at these movements account for 25% of their total marks. Three cameras set up along the edge of the arena will capture a minimum of six steps of passage preceding and following the piaffe, the piaffe itself and the transitions between them.

Clayton will also position three video cameras at the show jumping event in order to record world-class horses going over a selected fence. These tapes will include the final approach stride, take off, airborne phase, landing and the first stride as the horse moves off to continue the course (the recovery stride). In each case, the location of the cameras will allow three-dimensional views to be constructed, since important landmarks on the horse's body (such as centers of joint rotation) will always be visible by at least two of the three cameras.

Meanwhile, Deuel will be building on the research she began at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul. This time, she'll be heading up the team to record and analyze performances in the three-day event. Her participation at the last Summer Olympics (and at the 1990 World Equestrian Games in Stockholm) offers a unique opportunity to analyze some of the same horses four years apart. With her studies, she hopes to help answer one of the prime questions in gait analysis research: does a horse possess certain gait characteristics that are immutable over time? If the answer is yes and if those characteristics that mark a horse exceptionally talented for a chosen sport can be identified, then gait analysis may emerge as a very useful selection tool when making purchasing decisions.