You may have noticed I’ve added an item at the top of the Sidebar entitled Sign Up!, with a link below it that says “Stay informed and contribute to our knowledge.” That link will take you to a very simple, but very important, form I’d encourage every visitor to fill out. Not only will it allow you to receive emails from me when I put up new posts, it’ll also let you enter the email address of another horse owner whom you feel may benefit from the information I share here.

But perhaps more importantly, it informs me of your interest in possibly participating in various surveys and studies which I plan to begin conducting. As I’ve pointed out in the past, the horse world is absolutely full of misinformation about nearly every aspect of of equine management. That makes it extremely difficult for the horse owner, whether new to the equine world or an “old pro,” to find accurate and reliable sources of information. The remedy to that problem is data. And so it’s become one of my “life goals” (and certainly the goal of this site) to do my level best to provide only dependable and useful information.

To that end, I’ll be designing and conducting several programs of study, some of which will require information from horse owners about various aspects of their horses’ management. All such information will be completely anonymous, of course, and will only be used for the purpose of furthering knowledge so we can all make better choices for our animals. At the moment, I’m planning a survey on hoof care practices, a gait analysis study to examine landing forces, and the development of a library of 3D solid CAD models of the equine lower limb.

I sincerely hope you’ll sign up for updates and consideration for these projects, and pass on our site to your various “horsey” friends and acquaintances. A study can only be successful if there’s sufficient data to make the results statistically meaningful. That means every participant is important.

So please help out, and the horses thank you in advance!