Abstract
The shift of the horse breeding sector from agricultural to leisure and sports purposes led to a decrease in local breeds' population size due to the loss of their original breeding purposes. Most of the Italian breeds must adapt to modern market demands, and gait traits are suitable phenotypes to help this process. Inertial measurement unit (IMU) technology can be used to objectively assess them. This work aims to investigate on IMU recorded data (i) the influence of environmental factors and biometric measurements, (ii) their repeatability, (iii) the correlation with judge evaluations, and (iv) their predictive value. The Equisense Motion S® was used to collect phenotypes on 135 horses, Bardigiano (101) and Murgese (34) and the data analysis was conducted using R (v.4.1.2). Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was employed to assess the effects of biometric measurements and environmental and animal factors on the traits. Variations in several traits depending on the breed were identified, highlighting different abilities among Bardigiano and Murgese horses. Repeatability of horse performance was assessed on a subset of horses, with regularity and elevation at walk being the traits with the highest repeatability (0.63 and 0.72). The positive correlation between judge evaluations and sensor data indicates judges' ability to evaluate overall gait quality. Three different algorithms were employed to predict the judges score from the IMU measurements: Support Vector Machine (SVM), Gradient Boosting Machine (GBM), and K-Nearest Neighbors (KNN). A high variability was observed in the accuracy of the SVM model, ranging from 55 to 100% while the other two models showed higher consistency, with accuracy ranging from 74 to 100% for the GBM and from 64 to 88% for the KNN. Overall, the GBM model exhibits the highest accuracy and the lowest error. In conclusion, integrating IMU technology into horse performance evaluation offers valuable insights, with implications for breeding and training.
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