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The Icelandic horse is an ancient breed, descending from horses imported by the first Scandinavian settlers of Iceland (Hendricks, 1995). The genetic profile of the breed has remained stable over the past 150 years (Campana et al., 2012). The Icelandic horse is a gaited breed with the natural ability to perform the tölt in addition to walk, trot, and canter (Andersson et al., 2012). The breed is very versatile, from being a friendly hacking partner to a powerful competition horse. At the present, international Icelandic horse competitions attract people and there is a growing fascination with the special gaits of the Icelandic horse. A gait is a coordination pattern of the limbs which is identified by timing and sequence of the footfalls. Various factors, such as speed, genotype and environmental factors influence the gait naturally chosen by a horse (Kristjansson et al., 2014). Due to their potential to perform this symmetric four beat gait, the horse has become very popular in Europe. Each Icelandic horse is born with an innate gait potential. One of the characteristics of gait potential is forelimb leg action. The aim of today’s breeding is to breed powerful horses, with a lot of natural, high movement. A horse with high forelimb action, paired with powerful expression and clear four beat rhythm will receive higher scores in sports and breeding evaluations, thereby making it more successful and increasing the value of the animal. To enhance the expressiveness of forelimb movement in tölt, weighted boots are added to the distal limb. The addition of weighted boots can maximize limb peak forces, thereby improving gait quality. There are strict regulations regarding the use of hoof weights in a competition. These days, the allowed range of weighted boots varies from 0-250 g (FEIF, 2021).
Recent technological advances have provided quantitative ways of evaluating equine gait mechanics (Sepulveda et al., 2018). Quantitative gait analysis can provide unbiased and objective gait information, thereby enabling a better understanding of the biomechanical principles of equine gait locomotion (Bragança et al., 2018). At the present day, gait analysis plays a crucial role in defining equine biomechanical parameters for performance evaluation. Training aids, such as weighted boots are a popular tool in daily training routines as well as competition set up. The Icelandic horse competition rider community is increasingly acknowledging their use to increase the lifting of the fore limb in motion.
The aim of this dissertation is to investigate the effect of weight boots on motion patterns in tölt and to demonstrate whether they can have a beneficial effect on the horse’s gait mechanics variability. Quintic Automatic Equine Report technology was used to determine the effect of weighted boots on the height of the swing phase, depicting changes in knee joint angles. Potential changes were measured by attaching skin markers to joints and to furthermore measure changes in joint degrees, thereby looking at a correlation between hoof weight and gait mechanics. Six sound Icelandic horses, habituated to weighted boots were included in the study.
Recent technological advances have provided quantitative ways of evaluating equine gait mechanics (Sepulveda et al., 2018). Quantitative gait analysis can provide unbiased and objective gait information, thereby enabling a better understanding of the biomechanical principles of equine gait locomotion (Bragança et al., 2018). At the present day, gait analysis plays a crucial role in defining equine biomechanical parameters for performance evaluation. Training aids, such as weighted boots are a popular tool in daily training routines as well as competition set up. The Icelandic horse competition rider community is increasingly acknowledging their use to increase the lifting of the fore limb in motion.
The aim of this dissertation is to investigate the effect of weight boots on motion patterns in tölt and to demonstrate whether they can have a beneficial effect on the horse’s gait mechanics variability. Quintic Automatic Equine Report technology was used to determine the effect of weighted boots on the height of the swing phase, depicting changes in knee joint angles. Potential changes were measured by attaching skin markers to joints and to furthermore measure changes in joint degrees, thereby looking at a correlation between hoof weight and gait mechanics. Six sound Icelandic horses, habituated to weighted boots were included in the study.