Comparison of the Damping Effect of Different Shoeing by the Measurement of Hoof Acceleration

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to compare the damping effect of 16 types of shoeing by measuring hoof acceleration parameters on two trotting horses. At impact, maximal deceleration had extreme values such as 188 m/s²(± 55) for the most damping combination (p < 0.01) and 746 m/s² (± 14) for the steel shoe (mean = 551 m/s² ± 125). After the shock, the hoof was exposed to a mean vibrating acceleration at 418 Hz (± 84) which was progressively damped in 37.3 ms (± 10.5). According to these results, the damping ability of different farriery products significantly reduces (p < 0.05) shocks and vibrations at hoof impact in the athletic horse caused by runs on asphalt or similar surfaces. In practice, the use of the most efficient shoeing should help to reduce the incidence of the overused joint diseases in the athletic horse caused by runs on hard surfaces.

Biomechanics of locomotion in the athletic horse

“…35 Compared to the reference steel shoe, shock reduction was higher for light shoes made of a polymer and/or aluminum alloy which had lower stiffness values and density than steel (Fig. 2.5.13).…”

“…[34][35][36] An accelerometer could be fi xed on the hoof wall in order to measure the maximal deceleration of the hoof impact on the ground and the vibration frequency ( Fig. 2.5.6).…”

Design and demonstration of a dynamometric horseshoe for measuring ground reaction loads of horses during racing conditions

“…The natural frequency of 1744 Hz was more than five times greater than the 260 Hz cutoff frequency, a bandwidth considered sufficient for the study of the hoof strike at a gallop (Benoit et al, 1993). Because the usable bandwidth of an undamped second order system is about 20% of the natural frequency without the need to correct for instrument dynamics (Doebelin, 1990), the natural frequency was sufficiently high.…”

“…Design criteria for a dynamometric horseshoe must take specific environmental factors into account. Hoof height varies from 0.9 to 1.0 cm between shoeings (Dyce et al, 1987;Josseck et al, 1995), and a racing plate can be up to 1.8 cm thick with a toe grab (Benoit et al, 1993;Kane et al, 1996) and heel traction devices, leaving a shoe thickness of up to 2.8 cm possible without altering shoeing parameters beyond those found during training. Aluminum racing plates weigh about 0.1 kg (Kane et al, 1996), with their steel training counterparts weighing 0.3 kg.…”

Application of Wavelet Filtering to Analyze Acceleration-Time Curves of Horses Trotted on Different Surfaces

“…Several investigations have shown that acceleration measurement is a suitable method to find differences in the stress on the horse's limb caused by various shoeing [1,2] or different surfaces [3][4][5][6][7][8]. Measurement data, such as acceleration-time curves, often include noise that influences the results.…”