Balanced Equine Body Work

            Dr. Hilary Clayton is undoubtedly a wonderful lecturer wherever she goes, but if you have the opportunity to take her course on biomechanics and gait analysis offered through Equinology, the California-based school for equine sports massage and complementary equine care, at Mary Anne McPhail Equine Performance Center - don't miss it!  The McPhail Center, located at the College of Veterinary Medicine at Michigan State University in East Lansing, is one of the few university labs designed expressly for studying equine biomechanics. It is a fantastic facility - the classroom looks into the covered arena where they collect data with the horses. When Dr. Clayton lifted the curtains on the arena the first day, a collective gasp went up from the group. She told us that the design really IS borrowed from church architecture, so it isn't just that we were having a religious experience! But perhaps that explains the sense of "entering the inner sanctum" that one gets from learning from this world-renowned equine biomechanics expert and her staff and students in the lab designed just for their research.

            Of course, what is really interesting about the arena is primarily along one side, where 8 infrared video cameras collect data from horses lit like Christmas trees (Dr. Clayton's words), as their anatomical markers move through the cameras' shimmering red field of vision. It is one thing to hear Dr. Clayton describe the process of research and data collection, and another to get to experience it for yourself. The class is more than a class with Dr. Clayton -- her staff and research team all participated. LeeAnn Kaiser manages the lab, handles details, and operates the equipment that collects the data from the horse's markers and synthesizes it into 3-dimensional representations of the horse in motion. We spent some time practicing how to locate the bony landmarks that would allow us to place the markers over the centers of joint rotation of both the front and hindlimb, and then LeeAnn took us out into the field, in this case the arena. There we met Dr. Narelle Stubbs, the equine physiotherapist who co-wrote "Activate Your Horse's Core" with Dr. Clayton. She helped us to tape all the markers in the right spots and then LeeAnn showed us how they calibrate the cameras, create a template, collect the data, connect the dots, and generate 3-dimensional computer animation of the horse in motion. The data is also logged into spreadsheets and analyzed for the results of any given project. Dr. Clayton explained that this technology is very similar to how they created "Golem" in Lord of the Rings. She also explained that one of the most recent projects they are working on is actually making the computer generated images into more than stick figures by putting "skin" on them! Apparently this is much harder than it sounds and they are still working on it, but Dr. Clayton did show us a funny little clip of animated horse "skin" applied to movement data collected from a Chihuahua!'

            Dr. Clayton is also great at incorporating her students' knowledge and questions into her quest for knowledge about how horses move, which definitely gives you the sense of being poised on the edge of an important breakthrough. While presenting on how the stifle joint operates, she offered the untested hypothesis (stemming from the fact that the torque on the stifle joint is in the back of the joint) that the horse's hamstring muscles are more important in the action of the stifle than the quads. Her thinking on this was that dressage horses are asked to work as though they are "sitting." One of the students commented that it was as though they were squatting "on their toes" since the anatomy of the horse's distal limb is cognate with human digits. While she mused on this, Louis Wild, a clinical sports massage therapist for athletes and horses from Athens, GA, raised his hand and said, "I work on a lot of dancers, so I started taking ballet. I'm learning to do grand plie which you do by bending the knees and deepening from a demi plie, lifting the heels off the ground and shifting the weight forward on to the ball of the foot, engaging the hamstrings and adductors so that the quads are more relaxed and not the sole source of support." Eureka! Perhaps the Grand Prix horses are really Grand Plie horses! Lightbulbs went off all over the room, and we demanded that Louis go to the front of the class to demonstrate the grand plie. Being a good-natured fellow and willing to donate his body to science, he did so while protesting that at 6 feet, 200 lbs, and 60 years old he might not offer the most graceful plie, but it was certainly instructive and appreciated by all. Later when we got a chance to see how the force plates work, we unanimously insisted that he perform yet another grand plie for us on the plates.

            Another highlight of the class was a presentation by Dr. Sandra Nauwelaerts, a Belgian biologist. Dr. Nauwelaerts is admittedly NOT specifically interested in horses and had no previous equine experience before unrolling her research at the Center. Perhaps this is what gives her the courage to try things that no one with equine experience would think possible! She gathers up foals soon after they are born and puts them on the force plate to see how they stabilize themselves and then continues to measure this throughout their development. The resulting pattern of data is called the "stabilogram." She has just begun to collect her data, so her project still falls strictly into the category of hypothesis, but the potential for impact on the world of equine performance seems profound. The stabilograms, thus far, show that foals show greater instability, or rocking, cranially to caudally as opposed to laterally, while adult horses -- though clearly designed for forward motion -- show more lateral sway. While she does not offer a hypothesis for this (yet!), she did make the connection between these findings and observing the stability of both lame and neuropathic horses. Thus far, stabilograms from horses with diagnosed neuropathy show a higher instability and more cranial/caudal deviation, than the stabilograms of normal horses. Further, when blindfolds are placed on both sound and neuropathic horses, thus far, those with neuropathy show greater deviation than the sound horses. Additionally, lame horses could potentially show greater instability around the limb that they avoiding loading.

            The data is still being collected, marker by marker and horse by horse at The McPhail Center, so it is premature to get excited. But for a moment there, in the glow of the infrared lights, it was possible to imagine a world where lame horses do not have to be injected with nerve blocks and run in circles, but just asked to stand quietly on a force plate to identify the compromised limb, or where horses with neuropathy can be easily and confidently identified before lengthy and expensive diagnostics are employed. It should be reiterated that these ideas are only hypotheses and have yet to be borne out by data collection and analysis. However, it is definitely exciting and this is part of what makes taking a class at McPhail so exceptional. Other highlights of the course included a riding demonstration of an electronic pad placed beneath the saddle to measure the pressure it puts on the horse's back as he performs different activities, and an afternoon spent practicing core mobilization and strengthening exercises for horses with Dr. Stubbs.  It's easy to get caught up in big ideas when listening to the concepts Dr. Clayton and her team work with every day at The McPhail Center, but one of the most important things we learned was just basic -- don't forget to apply what you already know!