Unlike most sports where men and women compete in separate divisions of the same sport, equestrian competition often features male and female riders in head-to-head competition. A study out of England sought to determine whether horses preferred to be ridden by men or women.
Doctoral student Charlotte Schrurs and Dr. David Gardner, both with the University of Nottingham Veterinary School, used 530 Australian Thoroughbreds between the ages of 2 and 7 for their study. All horses were trained under the Ciaron Maher Racing banner.
The horses were ridden by 103 different riders: 66 men and 37 women. Of the riders, 42 were professional jockeys. A total of 3,568 rides on sand, turf, and synthetic footing were recorded.
Each horse wore an Equimetre, a fitness tracker that recorded speed, stride length and frequency, equine heart rate and rate of recovery. The data allowed the scientists to objectively report the effect of the rider's sex on the horse's cardiovascular and biomechanical parameters during various points of the horse's exercise, from a slow canter to a gallop.
The team determined that rider sex did not influence racehorse speed or stride length, no matter how hard the horse was working.
However, heart-rate recovery after exercise did appear to be influenced by rider sex. This occurred only when the traditional training intensity on a grass or sand surface was reversed. This suggests an interaction between the horse's anticipation of exercise and the sex of the rider.
The scientists suggest that male riders may anticipate the training intensity for the footing and transmit that energy to the horse, which responds with a higher heart rate. They suggest more studies be conducted to confirm these findings.
The team next turned to horses running in competition races to determine whether they preferred male or female jockeys. Using 52,464 races, the scientists found that female jockeys in Britain had win percentages similar to male jockeys: 10.7 percent and 11.3 percent, respectively.
The researchers concluded that the sex of the jockey has minimal effect on both training and racing outcomes.
Read more at HorseTalk.
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