Aurora Sochan owns In Gait Equine, a rehabilitation and physiotherapy practice in New England. Her caseload includes horses coming back from colic surgery or soft tissue injury, as well as competition horses needing support with chronic issues such as back pain, neck pain and other axial skeletal problems.

Across both groups, she wanted a more consistent way to follow progress.

“It can be hard to compare a horse’s movement consistently from one day to the next,” she says. “Even for the best vets, it can be difficult to say, ‘Is this a little better today? Do I focus on that bad step, or all of the other good steps?’”

That is where Sleip fits into her work: as an objective outcome measure that helps the care team see how a horse is changing over time.

Data collection, not diagnosis

Aurora is clear about the boundary of her role. She uses Sleip to collect information that can support the veterinarian’s clinical assessment.

“My job isn’t to diagnose a lameness, or even give my opinion on lame or sound,” she says. “I would hope I have a better eye than an untrained person, but I’m not a veterinarian. That said, it’s really helpful to have something objective that documents what I’m seeing, so the whole team has the same information to work from.”

In practice, Aurora often records her patients with Sleip within a few days of a veterinary appointment, so the objective gait data can be viewed alongside the clinical assessment.

“We can look at what the veterinarian saw on Monday and what Sleip captured on Wednesday,” she says. “Then we’re able to put those together.”

Keeping a large care team aligned

Many of Aurora’s cases involve several people: the veterinarian, owner, trainer, farrier and rehabilitation practitioner. Each person may see the horse at a different time, in a different context.

“As a rehab practitioner, I’m usually seeing these horses a lot more frequently,” she says. “If I can collect data so everyone is on the same page — the vet, myself, the farrier, the trainer and the owner — that’s really helpful. The team gets quite large at times.”

Aurora’s own role combines rehabilitation work with her background as a credentialed veterinary technician. That gives her a practical view of where technicians can add value: collecting clinical information and presenting it clearly to the veterinarian.

“We’re good at collecting data and information, just like we take radiographs or lab work,” she says. 

Capturing what happens between visits

One of Aurora’s clearest examples is the intermittent lameness case: the horse that looks lame one day, then sound by the time the vet arrives.

“That’s very frustrating for clients,” she says. “The horse is sound today, so the vet can’t block him when the vet comes out. But at least we have this data, or this snapshot of today. If he’s sound next week when the vet comes, we still know what it was like this week.”

She recently worked with a horse that ranged from barely visibly lame to clearly lame after jumping.

“He could be barely a grade one, where the owner and trainer couldn’t see it,” Aurora says. “Then he would land from a jump and be a three for a few minutes, and then go back down to a one.”

For cases like that, Aurora sees value in having objective documentation that can be shared with the care team.

“It’s helpful beyond just a blurry video on someone’s cell phone,” she says. “It helps capture the day-to-day shifts in a more scientific way.”

Supporting continuity of care

When asked what advice she would give to other veterinary technicians helping their practices adopt Sleip, Aurora returns to continuity of care.

“Most of us love that nursing aspect — following the case through. Equine veterinarians are pulled in a million different directions. Technicians are sometimes able to spend more time with that horse, and can be used a lot more in client communication and data collection.”

For practices bringing Sleip into daily work, that is where vet techs can make a clear difference. They can help establish a baseline, record consistently around rechecks, capture changes between visits and make sure the information reaches the people who need it.

That is what makes objective gait monitoring useful in practice: not a single recording, but a shared record that helps the team follow the horse over time.