Trying to Make Sense of the Equisense

One of the things that I am hoping the Equisense will show is signs of lameness. The first ride that I used it on Phantom had a symmetry score of only 6.9, which correlated with the slight not quite right on her left front that I had been feeling.

The next ride she felt much more even. This was reflected in an increase of the symmetry score to 7.4.

The rides after that have increased again to between 7.7 and 7.9, often with a high point in the high 8's somewhere in the ride. She has been feeling pretty good in her body and the higher score reflects that.

The overall score for this ride was 7.9, with a high of 8.7.

So I was curious to see what her scores showed on the last ride when she had that bit of a tying up episode.

First, in my haste to get her over to the barn and get bute into her ASAP when I detected what was happening I failed to turn off the tracking. I think I pushed the button twice, so stopped it and restarted it. My actual ride was only about 34 minutes long, but the tracker ran for another hour sitting on my saddle stand before I figured out that it hadn't stopped.

Second, as soon as I realized what was happening I hopped off of her. So there really wasn't much time for the data to accumulate.

Here is her symmetry from that ride.

She hadn't been ridden for about 2 weeks, so that could account for the slightly lower scores throughout the ride.

All the blank time on the right was because I didn't turn the sensor off when I thought I did.

The low point was 6.1. This was before we cantered and before I felt any issues. I think that at this point of the ride I was giggling at sitting trot attempting to do a shoulder-in to lengthened trot on a ping pong ball of a very good feeling horse. It was not overly successful. Lateral work supposedly reduces your symmetry score so I think that ping pong ball lateral work = low symmetry.

The last trot symmetry score was 7.7. This was after canter, which often has a higher score, and was mainly just trying to just slow the f down. Then she slowed down to the icky poky trot, and within about a 1/4 of a circle I had dropped down to walk. I think that the symmetry score didn't register for that icky trot because it probably wasn't long enough, and it wasn't on the straight line that is required to calculate the score.

So I would have to say that in this particular instance, the Equisense did not pick up on the upcoming issue through the ride.

If it did, the scores were minimally lower than what they would be on a normal ride so it didn't set off sirens. To be fair to the Equisense, Phantom might not have displayed any symptoms until I felt it and then I didn't give the sensor enough time to track it, or she may have been symmetrically stiff. Unfortunately, under these circumstances I'm not willing to let things go long enough just to see what score she gets.