The Royal Veterinary College (RVC) has partnered with Equine Register to undertake important research using data from new functions in the Digital Stable app.
Funded by the Horse Trust, the RVC research project team will use this information to further the understanding of infectious disease risks among horses.
Currently, it is challenging to understand the risks of infectious disease spread between different UK horse populations, particularly among leisure and competition horses, as there is limited information about where they travel and come into contact with each other.
Digital Stable is Equine Register’s free flagship application which connects owners, riders, professionals, and those who enjoy horses and ponies for leisure with their digital records held on the Central Equine Database (CED).
The mobile app empowers individuals to manage their data, improving accuracy and biosecurity.
A cornerstone of understanding the physical locations and interactions of horses and ponies in Britain is the new Record My Ride and Record My Journey functions, which allow riders to record the routes and durations of their rides, and any horse transport.
Record My Ride works similarly to exercise apps that track the performance and distance of runners, enabling riders to capture and share data while out on a horse, such as hacking on bridlepaths.
Record My Journey tracks the movement of horses and their riders when heading to an equestrian event, competition, riding school or other destination.
Using these data, the RVC team will be able to analyse anonymised movement data from the app to identify hot spots where risk of infection is highest.
This will improve our understanding of how to manage risks, minimise the spread of infections, help prevent outbreaks and reduce disruption to the whole industry should an outbreak occur.
Tegan McGilvray, PhD student at the RVC, said: “Outbreaks of equine infectious diseases impact horse health and welfare and are financially detrimental to all involved.
“Improving our understanding of the movement of all types of horses and ponies will allow for improvements in infectious disease mitigation and control.”
The RVC is inviting all horse and pony owners and riders to get involved.
For more details about the project and on taking part, please visit the project page.
