For those of you who follow me on social media, you'll probably have noticed a couple of posts about the annual research conference hosted at my university on Friday.
The conference plays host to a variety of speakers, from experts in their respective fields to recent graduates and members of staff. It's a great way to learn a little bit more about the research going on in the industry, as well as a chance to get inspired with dissertation ideas. There were a couple of equine speakers that really stood out to me, but the one I want to talk to you about is making waves in the industry.
Heather Cameron-Whytock is a year 2 PhD student. Her undergraduate dissertation focused on horse falls in one-day eventing. After presenting her findings at a conference, her work got media attention from some leading equine magazines and she event presented her findings to the FEI.
Her PhD is focused on the same topic, but going into greater depths as to why these falls happen using data and field analysis. Her undergraduate dissertation had 2000ish data sets, but her current work has 850,000 sets, which contains millions of data point. The results will determine if her undergraduate findings are applicable to one-day British Eventing as a whole, and to an extent three-day events.
Heather's work has highlighted a few interesting things so far. Preliminary results indicate that riders ranked more highly before the cross-country phase (i.e. they have completed their dressage and showjumping rounds) are more likely to fall in the cross country phase. Furthermore, the riders that completed questionnaires for her work have indicated that they rarely make note of where frangible pins are located so that aspect doesn't significantly play a role in the psychology of the rider when approaching the jumps. The questionnaires also highlighted the fact that most people, particularly those involved with horses in some way, are more likely to place the blame on the rider when a fall does occur.
Not only has she identified potential causes of the fall - physiology, psychology, ground conditions, rider experience etc - but her PhD includes profiling of the riders as well as recording their heart rate to measure stress. A record is being kept of how the psychology of the rider is influenced by different factors and whether this affects the likelihood of the fall - e.g. is a parent/partner's presence going to increase the rider's stress level enough to impact the way they ride?
This research will go a long way in identifying the main risk factors for riders in the cross-country phase of the one-day event, as well as providing a guideline for British Eventing as to where the accidents are most likely to happen. Hopefully this will reduce the number of fatalities being reported in this discipline and provide riders with the knowledge of how to keep themselves and their horse safe.
If you are interested in reading about Heather's work, please visit Research Gate (click here) or find her/Myerscough College on social media.
Until next time~
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