Today sees the start of the COVID postponed ISES 2021 conference take place at Hartpury University. The mission of ISES (International Society for Equitation Science) is to promote and encourage the application of objective research and advanced practice which will ultimately improve the welfare of horses in their associations with humans. The conference theme is Succeed with Science: performance, practice and positive wellbeing. The current President of ISES is my long-term collaborator Dr Jane Williams (Hartpury University) along with Secretary Lorna Cameron (previously of Sparsholt College and now at Hartpury), another of my collaborators.
I’m delighted to have been invited to give a keynote presentation on “Defining and measuring performance in equestrian sport” and to have been invited to take part in two workshops. Jane and I will also be presenting some original research, including several surveys that were launched through my Facebook page @drdavidmarlin and platform (www.drdavidmarlin.com). These are:
- Factors associated with falls of riders, or riders and horses – Marlin, Tabor and Williams
- Equine body condition: horse owners’ perceptions – Marlin and Williams
- Development and Validation of the Human-Equine Attachment Scale – Corrigan, Marlin, Evans and Williams
The final programme can be viewed here: https://www.hartpuryequineevents.co.uk/media/rdujcv5x/scientific-programme-final-1.pdf
I’m really looking forward to my 2nd post COVID conference, following the highly successful 11th International Conference on Equine Exercise Physiology (ICEEP) in Sweden in July. It will be a great opportunity to catch up in person with other researchers and collaborators, a number of whom have given webinars on our platform recently including Linda Greening, Tim Parkin, Marc Pierard, Russell Mackechnie-Quire, Lars Roepstorff, Hayley Randle, Gillian Tabor, Euan Bennett, Tamzin Furtado and Ella Bartlett.
Whilst the conference is in person, it is also being live-streamed for those who cannot attend physically. Full details of the conference can be found here: https://www.hartpuryequineevents.co.uk/ises-equitation-science-conference-2022/
