Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

Locomotion in young trotters during breaking and their first training period.
A pilot study on four one-year-old trotter’s locomotion during breaking and their first training period. Studies have shown that horses that initiate training at early age have better chances to a successful racing carrier with less health problems. The most common injury in racing horses are orthopedic injuries because of too much exercise load. Studies have shown that horses often show low degree lameness and asymmetric locomotion, although their owner thinks their horses are sound. In this study, a Lameness Locator were used to measure locomotion asymmetry on four young fillies during breaking and their first training in life. The result of the study was that the young horses show a significant higher value of asymmetric locomotion when measuring during trotting by hand compared to measurements during trotting in sulky, and that these young horses had a lot of variations in their locomotion asymmetries during their first training period.