Bringing a Scientist's Approach to Your Horse

Equestrian Voices

Are you an expert on your horse? Do you see your peers or even your trainer “winging it” when it comes to structuring rides, or figuring out why that rail fell down, or why your horse seemed tired in today’s ride? We’re learning about ways to use science and data to drastically improve the performance of ourselves and our horses – and it’s exciting.

On this episode of Equestrian Voices, Dr. Tim Worden and Nicole Lakin from the Equine High Performance Sports Group join us to discuss how we can use what we’ve learned in recent decades from human sport, and use it to our benefit in horse sport.

This can sound a little intimidating at first, but there are simple practices to bring a “scientist’s approach” to your horse’s care and training. In fact, you probably use a data-focused approach in your horse’s training and management in small ways without even realizing it.

Along with your host, Caroline Culbertson, Nicole and Tim dive into:

• Why and how horse sport is behind in using science and data to improve athlete performance (that is, we mostly think of it to fix problems or injuries that have already happened)
• Why data and intuition can coexist - because the horseman’s intuition is also a powerful thing!
• Small, easy ways that you can start to “log data” about your horse and how that can help you
• Rethinking how we use video to determine where our horses’ weaknesses are (hint: it’s more than just having your friend video your round at a horse show!)