Analysis of movement mechanics in the training process of sport horses

Abstract

The aim of the study was to determine the effect of training process on changes of quantitative and qualitative indicators of the movement mechanics of sport horses. A load controller was used to evaluate the motion mechanics. The training load was divided into three stages with different lengths, speeds and degrees of load. Tested animals were 14 horses of Slovak Warmblood breed. Our results have shown that gradual increase of load in the tested horses resulted in better spaciousness of movement, which was reflected in the elongation of the horse´s stride, regular movement and significant energy of the pelvic limbs (p <0.05). From our findings we can state that the effect of gender did not have significant effect on the number and length of steps in each degree of load. We have noticed a significant difference (p <0.05) in the "number of steps" parameter between the age categories of horses in the age up to 7 years (3.460 ±619) and the category aged up to 14 years (3.383 ±572). Gradual increase of the training load led to the economization of the movement and the long-term training process sled to the adaptation of the organism to repeated load.