Applying Multi-Purpose Commercial Inertial Sensors for Monitoring Equine Locomotion in Equestrian Training
Authors: C. Fercher, Julia Bartsch, Steffen Kluge, Franziska Schneider, Anna M Liedtke, Axel Schleichardt, O. Ueberschär
Journal: Sensors (Basel, Switzerland)
Summary
# Editorial Summary Overtraining remains a significant threat to equine athletic longevity, yet most coaches and veterinarians currently lack objective tools to quantify training load in real time. Fercher and colleagues deployed five wireless inertial measurement units (IMUs) across the distal limbs and trunk to capture tri-axial acceleration data during routine schooling sessions, extracting biomechanical parameters including peak impact loads, stance and swing phase timing, and mediolateral load symmetry. Peak impact forces increased proportionally from walk through trot to canter in line with stride frequency, whilst stance and swing phases shortened consistently with speed; however, asymmetry markers showed substantial individual variation both between horses and across repeat sessions on the same animal. These findings underscore that standardised gait thresholds are unlikely to serve all horses equally, and that sport horses require individualised load profiles to enable meaningful interpretation of their training data and early detection of aberrant loading patterns that might precede injury. The practical value here is substantial: IMU-based monitoring can now be implemented during everyday training without specialized facilities or invasive instrumentation, offering coaches, veterinarians, and physiotherapists an objective means to tailor conditioning programmes, track acute responses to environmental changes, and intervene before cumulative microtrauma manifests as clinical lameness or career-ending injury. As the equestrian industry increasingly recognizes the business and welfare case for evidence-based training management, this accessible technology provides a pathway toward truly individualized exercise prescription rather than reliance on intuition or population-level guidelines.
Read the full abstract on PubMed
Practical Takeaways
- •You can now use affordable commercial sensors to objectively track your horse's movement patterns and limb loads during training without specialized equipment or veterinary visits
- •Individual horses show different loading asymmetries at the same speeds—use sensor data to customize training intensity rather than applying one-size-fits-all protocols
- •Monitor gait and load changes across gaits and speeds in your own training program to identify early signs of abnormal loading that could lead to injury before lameness appears
Key Findings
- •Tri-axial peak impact limb load increases progressively from walk to trot to canter, correlating with stride frequency
- •Stance and swing phases shorten systematically with increasing riding speed across all subjects
- •Longitudinal and lateral load asymmetry show considerable individual variability between and within horses, affected by gait
- •Commercial inertial sensors attached to distal limbs and trunk can objectively monitor training loads under routine field conditions