Photo Gallery

Early example of a wired commercial equine heart rate monitor manufactured by EQB (USA). The rubber electrodes were held in place under the girth and were attached by a wire to the electronics unit strapped to the riders thigh which displayed the heart rate. The unit had no memory so the readings had to be called out by the rider. Circa 1986.

Field study from the mid 1980's at the British Racing School in Newmarket. This study was part of my PhD. On the far left is Prof Roger Harris, back right holding the horse is a very young Roger Smith (now Prof Roger Smith of the Royal Veterinary College and equine orthopaedic and tendon expert). Front right is Dr Joyce Harman from the USA. Circa 1986

Holly, a very cute but slow Thoroughbred, wearing the mask system developed in conjunction with Birmingham University to measure ventilation and gas exchange in horses during maximal exercise on the treadmill. This was the first system to be able to achieve this and I spent many years writing software to do various analyses. It formed the basis for a number of important scientific papers in this area. The most important features were that it did not have valves and so was very low resistance and did not change how the horse breathed during gallop. It was also able to measure on a breath-by-breath basis. It could only be used on the treadmill however due to the size and weight of the respiratory mass spectrometer that was used with it, not to mention the size of the computers. Today no commercial company has managed to reproduce this technology to a satisfactory level in a commercial device. The nearest is probably the Cosmed system. Circa 1989.

A contact sheet showing a mask and valve system developed to collect exhaled gases from horses exercising on a treadmill at walk and trot. Circa 1989.

Me and Bob the Thoroughbred from a story in The Racing Post in 1992. They did a story on a programme of transport research that I was running. This involved driving pairs of Thoroughbred horses around the country for 8h a day and measuring hear rate, weight loss, immune function, hormone and behaviour changes. This work was in collaboration with Aberystwyth University, University of Edinburgh and Imperial College.

The first high speed treadmill (a Sato from Sweden) installed in the UK at the Physiology Unit at the Animal Health Trust Balaton Lodge site in 1985. I was the first "animal" to run on it and I carried out the first study in the UK on a treadmill looking at blood lactate disappearance following galloping. Note the tiny office fan at the front of the horse. These days we recognise the need for at least one and often two chicken house extractor fans in order to keep the horses cool. The treadmill room washowever air-conditioned.

And the same treadmill in 1993 when being used for the Atlanta Olympics research. The room looks hot and damp and steamy and it is. We recreated the heat of Atlanta to understand what could reasonably be asked of from horses in the Atlanta climate, how best to acclimatise them to the heat and how to cool them after exercise. In this picture you can see on the left Catherine Orme (who I think was doing her PhD on fat metabolism with me at the time) and now independant equine nutritionist Dr Catherine Dunnett.

The Atlanta Project generated a huge amount of media interest. When we started it was not known whether horses could compete safely in Atlanta under any circumstances. This picture below is just one of many press photos - I think this one is from the Cambridge Evening News.

Part of the Atlanta work after we had completed the treadmill studies involved taking "real" horses to compete in a 1* three-day event in the South. This was a logistical and political nightmare but we ended up with two British riders and horses, two German and two Italian in Frankfurt in August 1994. We then flew them to Atlanta and after 48h quarantine spent 2 weeks acclimatising and training at Pine Top Farm near Augusta Georgia. We then travelled to the farm of Carl Bouckaert (a Belgian event rider) who hosted a three-day event involving a class for the International horses and a class for local horses. It was this study that convinced me that with appropriate measures and care a competitive three-day event comeptition could safely be run in Atlanta in August.

One of the highlights of working on the Atlanta Project was when HM The Queen asked to come and see the project, accompanied by HRH The Princess Anne who was involved with the FEI at the time.