The project aims to produce evidence to help reduce the risk of musculoskeletal injury, one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in racehorses worldwide.
The researchers say that despite significant advances in understanding of injuries that occur in horses on a racecourse, there is currently limited information on injuries that happen during training.
The study aims to identify modifiable risk factors and inform practical, evidence-based recommendations for trainers and equine vets.
Over a three-year period, the RVC-led research team will conduct prospective cohort studies in flat and national hunt (jump) thoroughbreds in training.
The researchers will estimate the incidence of the most common types of musculoskeletal injuries in racehorses in training, including fracture and tendon and joint injuries, develop novel measures of training workload that can be used to monitor training over time, and investigate how training regimes can be optimised to reduce the risk of exercise-induced injury.
The study will also trial the use of wearable technology to establish its practical usefulness for large-scale application in measuring horses’ training workload.
Professor Kristien Verheyen, Professor of Veterinary Clinical Epidemiology at the RVC, said: “This large-scale study will fill key knowledge gaps on injury occurrence in racehorses in training.
"Its findings will directly impact racehorse welfare by identifying opportunities for intervention based on ‘best practice’ in current training regimens to reduce the likelihood of injury.”
https://www.rvc.ac.uk/research/projects/training-injury-prevention-study
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