Just to be clear – we are talking about back motion of horses, not the riders.
This week is the 9th International Conference on Equine Locomotion in Utrecht and Prof Lars Roepstorff will present our research on back motion of elite showjumpers loose (free) jumping.
To design and optimise saddle fit and function, it’s essential to have a thorough understanding of how the horse’s back moves and changes shape. These changes are most extreme during jumping.
In this study, we used high-speed video from 30 cameras suspended on a gantry above the jump and reflective markers to determine changes in back shape with loose jumping.
You can view a video showing a horse loose jumping with markers, in slow motion, and the abstract for this study and all the abstracts from the conference which is open access/free to all in Comparative Exercise Physiology which is open access below.
https://vimeo.com/859325826?share=copy
Click the image above to go to the website to read the full abract.
