Researchers from the Royal Veterinary College (RVC) in the U.K. have made use of force plate technology to accurately measure the external work of galloping in racehorses.

This technique, which has never been used for such large animals at high speed before, showed that horses had much lower levels of external work — how much work the horse has to do to move relative to its environment — than had been reported previously when studied using different methods, RVC said.

An instrumented runway of sensors was planted under a section of the racing surface at the British Racing School by the academics who work in RVC’s Structure & Motion Lab. A professional jockey then rode seven thoroughbred racehorses over the specialist equipment, allowing the researchers to directly measure the external mechanical work of galloping by measuring the forces they exerted on the runway, according to an announcement from RVC.

The new study produced lower values than those previously reported for external work in galloping horses, RVC said. The researchers pointed out that the previously reported high external work values — estimated using different methods — are at odds with the fact that horses evolved to move at high speeds over long distances. A high external work value would make moving over long distances much harder. RVC’s new results support that thinking.

The researchers were able to calculate the apparent muscle efficiency of galloping horses by combining the external work values from this study with published values for metabolic work (the conversion of food into energy used by muscles) and internal mechanical work (how much work is needed to move the limbs relative to the body), the announcement said. They found that the horse’s efficiency values were between 37% and 46%.

The researchers said they expect that their findings will provide useful insight into the movement of racehorses and will contribute details towards explaining how racehorses can gallop so efficiently over long distances.

“This was really challenging data to collect, and to our knowledge, it is the first time high-speed galloping force plate data have been collected from such a large animal,” RVC postdoctoral research associate Dr. Zoe Self Davies said.

RVC professor Alan Wilson, who specializes in locomotor biomechanics and also contributed to the study, added, “These data provide fresh insights into these remarkable animals.”

The full study has been published in the journal Biology Letters.

RVC is the U.K.'s largest and longest-established independent veterinary school and is a constituent college of the University of London.

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