Influence of Gender and Racing Performance on Heart Rates during Submaximal Exercise in Thoroughbred Racehorses

Abstract

We investigated whether gender and racing performance of Thoroughbred racehorses affected the relationship between the heart rate and running speed. Twenty well-trained Thoroughbred racehorses, 7 "open" horses (3 males and 4 females) It was believed that most of the energy required for short-term, hard exercise such as horse races was supplied by an anaerobic pathway [3]. However, a recent report [7] has demonstrated that aerobic energy is highly involved even in such hard exercise for a short time.The heart rate has been conventionally used as an index to assess respiratory and circulatory functions of horses during exercise. The heart rate of horses during exercise increases linearly with increasing running speed [9,14] and reaches a plateau of 230-240 beats/ min at the maximum beyond a certain speed [1]. Heart rate at submaximal running speed becomes lower when training progresses and aerobic exercise capacity is increased. In other words, trained horses can perform an identical exercise with lower heart rate [10,12,15,23]. Based on these results, attempts have been made to evaluate training effects from the relationship between submaximal exercise and heart rates [16,21]. Additionally, there has been a report that the heart rate and the maximal oxygen uptake (V

The association of various speed indices to training responses in Thoroughbred flat racehorses measured with a global positioning and heart rate monitoring system

“…2003). These results are in contrast with our study, although a number of differences existed between the sample population and regime employed in our study compared with that of Mukai et al . (2003).…”

“…It has been previously found in horses that males achieve higher speeds and heart rates than females (Mukai et al. 2003).…”

“…In the current study, V 200 was found to be greater for fillies than for colts, which is in disagreement with previous studies (Ohmura et al . 2002; Mukai et al . 2003).…”

The influence of horse gender on eventing competition performance

“…However, no physiological or psychological reasoning for these results was given other than impaired run times during competition in females may be stress induced. A significant difference was found in the heart rates between male and female horses when cantering a 500 m circular track at submaximal levels, which suggests that the aerobic capacity of males may be higher than females 6 . A significant difference was found in the heart rates between male and female horses when cantering a 500 m circular track at submaximal levels, which suggests that the aerobic capacity of males may be higher than females 6 .…”

Heart Rates and Blood Lactate Response in Thoroughbred Horses during a Race

“…Trainers rarely accept these experimental conditions. In contrast, heart rate is well correlated with oxygen consumption during exercise [5], can easily be measured, and has been conventionally used as an index to evaluate cardiorespiratory functions in horses under field conditions [18,25,28]. Many researchers indicate that psychological conditions can influence athletic performance, putting forward the inverted-Uhypothesis as a useful working model of the relationship between arousal and performance [13,17].…”