Heart score and blood lactate in the assessment of athlete horse performance

Athletic performance in horses is very complex and depends on many specific factors that gives the horse a greater or lesser aptitude for certain disciplines. Sports medicine has shown that human's performance during athletic activity is strictly connected to different organic and functional features: neurosensorial qualities, cardiorespiratory capacity, muscular energy power and locomotory characteristics; these factors also play an important role in the case of horses undertaking sports activities. Both as far as human athletes and competitive horses are concerned, one metabolic factor is of particular importance for the practical outcomes that results in its presence: lactic acid - its concentration at the muscular and blood level and its progress in response to exercise. In addition, the cardiocirculatory apparatus must cope with the intense muscular work which follows physical exercise and it undergoes modification in shape and function which, in turn, is expressed in the assessment of heart score. Based on the above knowledge the study investigated the existence of a possible correlation between heart score and lactic acid in 82 horses of varying activities (22 sedentary, 9 trotters, 16 jumpers, 15 long distance runners, 20 gallopers) to provide useful information for the assessment of the horse's athletic performance. The obtained results indicated that the heart score, strongly influenced by the horse's aptitude, positively and significantly correlated with the aerobic muscular capacity.