This website is all about learning to reliably detect lameness with nothing but your eyes. Welcome to our interactive lameness game, the ‘Lameness Trainer’!

Lameness, the movement with a limp, is one of the most common reasons for horses to need veterinary attention. Lameness is commonly determined by observing vertical head and pelvis movement: if the up- and down movement shows asymmetry between the two steps of one stride, the horse is lame. Sounds too good to be true? Well, while pronounced lameness is pretty straight forward to pinpoint, research over the last decades has shown that mild lameness is in fact very difficult to figure out. Even expert veterinarians often disagree both on whether a horse is lame or not and which limb is affected, and less experienced people prove even less reliable.

Surprisingly, to date there is no training available to systematically teach lameness detection skills. It is hence difficult for horse owners, students or early career practitioners to refine assessment skills based on feedback and a varied caseload. For established veterinarians, feedback is typically detached from the immediate assessment after evaluating the results of further diagnostic tests. On clinics, there is hence only limited scope to refine and test perceptual skills directly. For all these reasons, we created a computerised lameness teaching game based on solid scientific evidence, which you find on this website.

The game you find here allows to learn lameness assessment skills from scratch while also challenging experienced practitioners and clinicians. In each of the modules you receive feedback on your performance while working through levels of increasing difficulty. We hope you have a lot of fun and gain skills that will prove very useful in the field. Whatever your connection with horses and whatever your skills, jump right in, have a browse and get started.

Sandra Starke, Gregory Miles and Stephen May