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FLAIR® Education Articles
Respiratory System
Dr. David Marlin, The Airways and The Lungs, The Horse, November 2007
Fatigue Fatigue is a term that is used frequently but often differently by different people. This paper provides an overview of what fatigue is, the causes of fatigue and specifically addresses indicators of fatigue in the enduance horse. Dr. David Marlin, The Physiology of Fatigue in Horses During Exercise, 2007
Dr. David Marlin, The Physiology of Fatigue in Horses, Can Fatigue be Measured, former Head of Animal Health Trust, 2007 EIPH
Havemeyer Foundation Workshop Exercise-Induced Pulmonary Haemorrhage: State of Current Knowledge 9th - 12th March 2006
K.W. Hinchcliff, J. McCaffrey, P. O’Callaghan, P. Morley, M. Jackson, J. Brown, A. Dredge, A. F. Clarke, Exercise-Induced Pulmonary Haemorrhage in Thoroughbred Racehorses: Effects on racing performance. A report for the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation, February 2005 |
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"Horses wearing a nasal strip had a 15% decrease in the interval to the next race compared with the race-to-race interval before wearing a nasal strip . . ." - Howard H. Erickson, DVM, PhD, et al. |
By the time a horse crosses the finish line in a five-mile race, has completed a Grand Prix show jumping round, or gone one-sixth of the way rough a three-star cross-country course, he will have moved somewhere around 1,800 liters of air in and out of the lungs. If you find 1,800 liters hard to visualize, then think of six bathtubs full of air. This equates to moving two five-gallon buckets of air into and out of the lung every second.
Exercise, whether in training or in competition, places tremendous demands on many of the different body systems of the horse. Exercise makes the respiratory sys- tem move more oxygen-rich air in and out of the lungs to replenish the blood oxygen concentration, the heart works harder to pump more oxygen rich blood to the muscles, the muscles contract around twice each second (to achieve stride rates of around 120 strides/minute) to propel the horse and the skeleton and other soft tissues must support the whole weight of the horse’s body as it moves.
This power point presentation provides an illustrated overview of fatigue and progression of fatigue to exhaustion in humans. The presentation then focuses on horses and discusses what fatigue is, indicators of fatigue and the progression of fatigue to exhaution.
Research has shown that more than half of all racehorses have some degree of exercise-induced pulmonary hemorrhage (EIPH). Some experts say that number is conservative and that almost every high-performance equine athlete experiences some form of bleeding in the lungs. The key word is degree. For many horses, a small amount of blood leaking into the lungs is absorbed with little to no adverse effect on the individual or its performance. For others, the story is quite different.
Exercise-induced pulmonary haemorrhage is a pervasive and important problem of athletic horses, particularly racehorses. Recognising the need for further research into this important problem, the Havermeyer Foundation has sponsored this Workshop as a forum to review current knowledge of EIPH and, perhaps more importantly, to identify areas of future investigation, including definition of specific research problems and approaches to addressing these issues.
Exercise induced pulmonary haemorrhage (EIPH) is a condition with high prevalence in racing thoroughbreds. However, despite its perceived importance as a cause of morbidity and impared performance, few studies have attempted to address the relationship of EIPH to race performance. This study was conducted to investigate the association between performance and EIPH in a large number of thoroughbred race horses. Endoscopic examinations were performed on 744 horses, representing 52.1% of those eligible horses starting during the study period. The results demonstrate that EIPH has a significant negative relationship with race performance of thoroughbred horses. There is a proportional inverse relationship between severity of EIPH and performance. There is no evidence that EIPH was associated with superior performance. Exercise induced pulmonary haemorrhage is a cause of reduced performance in thoroughbred race horses.