Strapped to different sections of a horse’s body, inertial measurement units (IMUs) are becoming useful tools for evaluating asymmetry and body lean angles. Dutch and Belgian scientists are now looking at ways to gather reliable movement data from IMUs placed on horses’ limbs, head, body, and pelvis. And this, they say, can lead to even greater accuracy in both veterinary diagnoses and performance evaluations.

“It is important that we have methods to objectively quantify and record limb motion since we are now, more and more, aware of the limitations of the human eye as an instrument to detect motion asymmetries, especially at high speeds,” said Filipe Serra Bragança, DVM, a PhD candidate in equine musculoskeletal biology at Utrecht University’s Faculty of Veterinary Medicine Department of Equine Sciences, in The Netherlands.

“Lameness cases are frequently characterized by asymmetric limb motion,” he said. “Whereas this asymmetry is generally reflected in asymmetries of back, withers, head, and/or pelvis, that asymmetry is more often than not secondary. Direct appraisal of the motion and function of the limbs themselves is thus of great interest. We also believe that this might even help breeders, by being able to more accurately quantify some (inheritable) locomotion parameters.”

In their recent study, Bragança and colleagues equipped seven healthy Warmblood horses with one IMU sensor on each limb. They placed the sensors on the cannon bones using fittings similar to exercise boots. To compare the data coming from the sensors, they also placed reflective markers on the cannon bones for motion capture