“If this works, the potential impact will be huge because there are no long-term rehabilitation harnesses available on the market today.”
“If this works, the potential impact will be huge because there are no long-term rehabilitation harnesses available on the market today,” said Dr. Julia Montgomery at USask’s Western College of Veterinary Medicine, who leads the research.
The horse industry contributes more than $19 billion annually to the Canadian economy, according to a 2010 study by Equestrian Canada, and is responsible for more than 80,000 full-time jobs on farms and in horse racing and competitions.
Biomedical engineering master’s student Samantha Steinke joined the research project in 2016 as an undergraduate student after her horse had to be euthanized following a tendon injury that would have left him debilitated. She is working with RMD to build and test the new harness.
Last year, Steinke was awarded an 18-month master’s fellowship by Mitacs, which is sharing the cost of her $45,000 fellowship equally with RMD. Mitacs is a publicly funded not-for-profit research and training organization that supports collaborations between industry, academia and governments in Canada.
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Image via University of Saskatchewan.
