NYRA, StrideSAFE Sensor technology research begins new phase
Since last summer, the New York Racing Association (NYRA) has Tested on thousands of athletes a discreet sensor technology capable of detecting small changes in a horse’s gait at high speeds.
Called StrideSAFE, the biometric sensing mechanism slides into the saddle fabric and acts like a traffic light signal, providing green for the whole scene, amber for possible warnings (color) light amber is better than dark amber) and red for possible danger.
The ultimate goal of StrideSAFE – a the focus of the discussion during the recent Grayson-Jockey Club Safety and Welfare of the Race Horse Summit – to detect acoustic problems undetectable to the naked eye before they turn into potential disasters . Nearly 6,500 races later, the results are in.
Of the 20 horses that suffered fatal musculoskeletal injuries during the testing period, 17 of them received a red rating in a race before encountering a catastrophic failure. One out of 20 received a previous dark amber rating.
Importantly, these dark red and amber ratings are given in the race just before the break or two or three races back.
Thus, from the results of this study alone, StrideSAFE technology detected 90% of horses with severe trauma, sometimes weeks or even months in advance.
Dr David Lambert, founder of StrideSAFE, said: “This is clearly a very important group for trainers to put first.
Leading to the next step on the road – a comprehensive program to first identify, then manage and properly diagnose the horses most at risk.
That’s because the 17 seriously injured horses that had received a red rating in previous races were among the hundreds of horses that were flagged red during the test.
While some of these flagged horses are at high risk for catastrophic failure, others are also more likely to suffer non-lethal career-ending injuries, while some are just sluggish or don’t try, Lambert said. The trick would be to quickly and accurately identify each type.
“At this time last year, we were just watching to try to figure out what this meant. Now we know enough to say that a [cautionary] The warning means you have to look at the horse,” said Dr. Scott Palmer, equine medical director for the New York State Game Commission, about a new trainer email alert system to be announced at Saratoga.
“That means we’re not just going to look at what’s going to happen anymore,” Palmer added.
What is StrideSAFE?
Here wireless iPhone-shaped device fits snugly to the saddle towel, and eight hundred times a second it takes many measurements to record in detail every minute of the horse’s movement at high speed.
These measurements include the horse’s acceleration and deceleration, the horse’s up and down concussion motion, and its mid-to-side motion, or, in other words, the horse’s side-to-side movement.
Finally, the sensors record high speeds invisible to the naked eye but significant enough to cause serious musculoskeletal injuries at some point – unless, of course, someone is acting on the horse’s behalf. prior intervention.
To understand exactly how StrideSAFE identifies the almost imperceptible signs of a limp, it helps to divide a walk into three distinct stages.
During the early stages of gallop, the hind limbs take the load and propel the horse forward. In the second, the horse shifts its weight forward, its forelimbs acting as shock absorbers. Next is the basis of the equation: A pause, just a fraction of a second, when the horse is completely airborne.
If that horse is sick or injured, it cannot adjust its body to compensate when the foot hits the ground. It can only do this in mid-air, rotating its spine and pelvis to prepare for a more comfortable landing.
Imagine a racing car going at high speed, one of its bolts acting loose.
“The horse does everything in the air, twisting, swaying and moving,” Lambert said previously explained arrive TDN.
Which leads to the next important question: How are the red, amber, and green ratings calculated?
Although there are about 151 subtle variables measured in each stride, only 15 are important to highlight important differences between individual horses, Lambert said.
Taken together, they create a basic standard that runs from 0 (which is the safest green rating) to greater than eight (which is at the red end of the spectrum) to which all horses can be compared. compare.
At the highest end of that spectrum – a standard deviation greater than 8 – the findings are remarkable. These rated horses in a previous race have a more than 50% chance of being injured in the next race or in the wind.
More broadly, of the 6,458 individual runs in the NYRA study, 74.5% were rated green, 6.6% rated as light amber, 5.5% rated as light amber. is dark amber and 13.4% is rated as red.
This means that 865 horses were red flagged – a relatively small percentage among runners overall.
But given the way these horses don’t look lame – and as such, it’s difficult to diagnose an underlying physical problem – there are still plenty of horses to screen for. identify the few most likely to fail.
Lambert developed the technology with Mikael Holmstroem, a Swedish PhD. with expertise in horse construction and movement, and Kevin Donohue, PhD, professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Kentucky.
And so, Lambert and this team tweaked the algorithm to identify the highest-risk horses and shave off the less-dangerous ones. In doing so, they attracted 7.4% of the population.
Lambert explains: “You find the model and then you direct the model. “And when we do that, we see that 40% improvement and drop us to about 7% without missing any [fatally injured horses]. “
That’s not to say other red flags should be ignored, as research has demonstrated that physical decline leading to catastrophic musculoskeletal injury is often a degenerative process that lasts for weeks and even hours. even a few months.
This is consistent with the scientific literature on fatal incidents, which shows the frequency hurt before appear at the actual site of the wound.
“This is not a case where they work well for one moment and break the next. The process is a continuum,” Lambert said. “It’s not as reliable as an acoustic monitor,” he added, “it’s meant to be used as an analysis monitor.”
Of all the horses that received a green rating in the NYRA study, 77% re-raced in less than 60 days and 85% re-raced in less than 120 days.
Lambert said similar research has yet to be done on red flag horses. But one analysis at the start of the program showed that only about 40% of horses with a red classification could race within the next four months after the race was analyzed.
This means that once a horse has received a warning flag, there needs to be a process to get it to the right tool to diagnose a brewing problem.
Palmer agrees with Lambert: “The same goes for the engine light on your car. “When the check engine light comes on, what does it mean? It means you have to have someone check your car.”
According to Palmer, he and the New York Thoroughbred Riders Association (NYTHA) recently launched a new system in Saratoga whereby the horse trainer issues a warning flag during the race then receives an email warning, or what is coined as “advice letter. “
“ONE [cautionary] alert is not ‘Scarlet Letter’ – it doesn’t mean [the horse is] Palmer talks about the significance of such an email. “The gist of it is, you need to have your horse examined by a veterinarian. That is the key point. “
Because StrideSAFE can detect looseness that is invisible to the naked eye, some problems in the brewing process will only be detected using some of the more sensitive diagnostic technologies being introduced. into the market – but not always.
“Some of them [veterinarians and trainers] Palmer said. “These are not things that are normally done with a horse every day.”
However, Palmer emphasized that in the majority of cases, additional veterinary supervision would result in a dislike of the diagnosis, calling it a “not one-size-fits-all” situation.
“If it’s a minor problem, the horse can rest for a while, come back and everything is fine,” he said. “In some cases, I fully hope that we will find nothing, and that the horse will be able to turn right back and race again.”
With the work ahead, NYTHA President Joe Appelbaum turned to a baseball analogy, describing the program in either the first or second inning.
“This is great,” Appelbaum said. “But we needed the widest range of data possible. We need to share that data and study it hard. We are starting this game, not the end. “