Making a Difference to Horses -Contributing to Equine Science
- Meriel Moore-Colyer
- Apr 5
- 5 min read
Are you an equine professional working with lots of horses on a weekly / monthly basis? If so we need you!
Presenting a scientific poster at a conference is an exciting and worthwhile thing to do, but as a practitioner you may have previously ruled this out feeling that your experience or the data you hold would not be suitable for a scientific poster. Well, think again, because information collected in the field can be a highly valuable resource and if analysed correctly can help inform future practice. So please read-on and see if you could engage with this valuable exercise for the benefit of yourself and others.
Want to learn more? We are hosting a free webinar to give more examples and answer your questions.
Why would you want to present a scientific poster?
Producing a poster allows you to ‘show-case’ your work, interact with other professionals in your area of expertise, and can help to inform your practice.
Working with horses and their owners is always a learning journey and it is highly likely that you are not aware of the valuable information you collect on a daily basis. Case records can provide valuable data, that when analysed objectively can inform your future decision-making.
Modelling data from several years of practice can help predict outcomes from your treatment and give you an evidence-based foundation on which to build personal programs and objective performance indicators that put hard evidence behind your treatment protocols.
We all have the aim of improving the health, welfare and performance of our horses and the best way to achieve this is to share information and accelerate knowledge transfer for the greater good of the horse.
Why a scientific poster?
A scientific poster is a ‘snap-shot’ of information that has been evaluated, put into context and presented in a highly accessible format. A good poster should present information that can be ‘gleaned in approx. 2 minutes of observation and reading. Posters display data that support a finding and are commonly used by academic scientists to present preliminary findings or give an early indication of some interesting results that are part of a larger on-going study. Posters are also a good way of encouraging collaboration and sometimes elicit funding support from interested parties.
Posters are a great way of increasing information transfer within a limited time and are now a key part of any good conference. Data presented in posters can be of any type i.e., nominal (no order or rank i.e. gender, colour, breed), ordinal (clear order or rank i.e. treatment outcomes), discrete (whole number data, e.g. stride length) and continuous (time, distance, BW) thus a wide range of data can be usefully presented to convey a finding in any topic.
The ‘nuts and bolts’ of a good scientific poster
A good poster will define the issue/ problem/ question, explain what and how data was collected to try and answer the question; present the findings from your analysed data and draw a meaningful conclusion. It is designed to be a very short over-view of the work and it needs to be ‘catchy’ so it attracts readers and stimulates them to ask questions about your work. Not all data lends itself to formal statistical analyses, but some form of structured evaluation is required; this is part of the objectivity of your work. Look on this aspect as structured reflective practice.
Is my data suitable to make into a poster?
An example of field-collected data might be a series of photographs of muscle development / symmetry / foot size, which could be analysed by measuring angles or distance between relevant anatomical points in the photos. These values can then be analysed for differences or used to show relationships (correlations) between 2 variables (measurements). Many of you will record measurements as part of your treatment and the changes are likely to be related i.e. number or type of treatments with the speed of change (so that would be a nice regression) which shows how many treatments it takes to effect a notable change. You might find that one or a few simple measurements are more indicative of change than others which could speed-up your appraisals and give owners an objective measurement on which to base their own assessment of progress.
You may be a coach and think that a certain way of training is more effective than another. Do you do A or B first, what combinations of exercises / activities do you find most effective? Such information can help other coaches develop effective techniques and provide evidence to support your method.
If you are a nutritionist you will have a large quantity of numerical data that could be analysed to show current status and develop feeding / management trends to improve health and performance.
With all these types of activities it is important to fully appreciate the status-quo before moving forward, so as a practitioner if you could report on what you have found so far, that will be highly valuable and give everyone starting point from which to develop.
If you are a current student or have completed a research project as part of a degree but not taken your results into the public domain, then producing a poster for the Horses Inside Out Conference is an excellent way of disseminating your findings. You will have heard your lecturers talking about the value of research, but it is only valuable if people get to hear about it. BSc projects are generally small because of time constraints but a well-structure study could provide a nice preliminary study, and scientific posters are the ideal medium to display this type of work. Doing an equine-related degree is the start of your journey and presenting a poster could lead to some useful links and collaborations to help you develop your career.
Guidelines on how to produce a poster can be found here
Application form can be found here
JOIN US FOR A FREE WEBINAR on Mastering Scientific Posters with professor Meriel Moore-Colyer for the opportunity to learn more and to ask questions.
Scientific Poster Presentation and Competition at the 2026 Conference
There will 12 scientific posters on display relating to the theme of Symmetry and Soundness.
During breaks, the authors of the posters will be available to discuss their ideas and research and 6 of the authors will have the opportunity to do an oral presentation of their poster.
There will be a competition for the best poster which will be judged by Professor Meriel Moore-Colyer and Dr Kathryn Nankervis.
1st prize:
Certificate,
£1,000 worth of on-demand training with Horses Inside Out
A Day with an Equestrian Legend*
Articles and publicity*
Runner Up:
Certificate
£500 worth of on-demand training with Horses Inside Out
Articles and publicity*
Abstracts and articles about the posters will be published in magazines and journals including Equine Science and Rehabilitation, International Journal of Equine Science and Equine Science Update.*
*See Guidelines for full details
Poster submission deadline is 31st July 2025. If you have any questions, please get in touch.
Guidelines on how to produce a poster can be found here
Application form can be found here
Want to learn more? We are hosting a free webinar to give more examples and answer your questions.
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