Equine sensing
Horse racing, also known as ‘The Sport of Kings’, is one of the world’s most popular sports attracting followers from every age, nationality and walk of life, in addition to significantly contributing to the Irish economy. The thrill of racing would be nothing without the ability of the jockeys to push themselves and their steeds to the absolute limit on race day. Preparing for racing jockeys aim to be as light as possible yet physically fit enough to complete several races in a day. Traditional techniques of weight cycling to make weight for a race are still predominantly based on tradition, however the introduction of a structured education and supports focusing around sports science and nutrition has resulted in the newer generation of jockeys adopting a more scientific and systematic approach to their preparation and weight management.
As part of this initiative, researchers from CLARITY and the School of Health and Human Performance have combined their expertise in attempting to quantify the specific energy expenditure and physical demands of horse racing on an equine simulator, under racing conditions and day to day living. Initial testing has seen a group of 20 trainee jockeys based in the Racing Academy and Centre of Education (RACE) at the Curragh in Kildare. Subjects underwent a physiological assessment on a cycle ergometer followed by a standardised protocol on an equine simulator to simulate different horse speeds and riding patterns.
During testing on the equine simulator subjects were instrumented with a number of sensors to measure different aspects of their movement, physiological capacity and the motion of the simulator. Four tri-axial GT3X accelerometers (Actigraph,Pensacola, USA) recording at 30Hz and three tri-axial accelerometers (Xbow, Milpitas, USA) recording at 2000Hz were placed at several sites on the body of the jockey. The aim was to measure the energy expended during the various speeds assessed within the protocol and also the effect of changes in body position while also aiming to evaluate the loading placed on the bones of the jockeys. A GT3X was also placed on the simulator to measure the speed and changes in speed as the protocol changed.
In order to have a gold standard for energy expenditure the jockeys were also instrumented with a portable metabolic system (Cosmed K4b2, Rome, Italy). This portable system allows for the collection of physiological data on a breath by breath basis during indoor and outdoor trials.
The use of multiple heterogeneous sensors, each conforming to different formats presents a difficult challenge to scientists when trying to interpret the output data. A knowledge gap exists between the needs of the end user (sport scientist) and the digital representation of multiple sensor files. In order to reduce this gap, we must first standardise the data by using a metadata driven approach through a series of profiles, providing structure and basic semantic knowledge, such as activity information and participant anthropometrics. Multiple sensor sources are then synchronised, and integrated with manually recorded contextual information. Finally, an Event-Condition-Action approach is provided for the domain experts to define data mining rules, thus enabling the sport scientist to discover their information needs.
The final aim of this research is to instrument both apprentice and professional jockeys with the minimal amount of sensors possible to measure energy expenditure during all aspects of daily living, training and racing. Data will be collected over 24hour periods during which they will perform their normal schedule and either a simulated or real race. This will allow for an accurate measure of the amount of energy used during racing, simulator training and their day to day activities, information of critical importance for such athletes whose careers depend on making designated weights.
Researchers
Greg May (Health and Human Performance & CLARITY) , Ken Conroy (School of Computing & CLARITY), Sarah-Jane Cullen (Health and Human Performance & Research Fellow of The Turf Club), Dr Giles Warrington (Health and Human Performance & CLARITY) and Mark Roantree (School of Computing & CLARITY).
