Exercise Testing The Competition Horse

Whether youre into the research and the resulting developments within our industry or not, you should be interested in the recent advancements for competitive riders.

Exercise testing is the practice that judges the natural ability of the competition horse and can indicate the presence of any undiscovered physical problems that may impede the performance of the individual. By assessing the fitness of your horse you can see if he is able to perform the task youre asking of him and also whether you need to make any changes to his training regime to get him to the level you want.

So where does this involve you? Research around the topic of exercise testing is actually very applicable to many everyday riders. Serrano et al (2002) had a group of 13 elite event horses of the ages 10 to 15 and of various fitness levels, and studied them during a training session and then separately during the cross country day phase of a three star event. Surprisingly just one horse showed a similar heart rate during the exercise, recovery rate that is the time taken for the heart rate to return back to a resting level and concentration of blood lactate when comparing the results on cross country day and those found in training. All the other participants had lower rates during the training test. Thus showing that, despite being at elite level, those horses tested werent trained nearly as much as they needed to cope with the physiological demands placed upon them during a competition. With news of horses suffering cardiac arrest or making errors when competing due to fatigue, you must understand the significant link between your horses fitness and their performance.

Never fear, you dont have to spend a fortune or subject your horse to bleeping monitors and machines, in fact it is fairly simple and doesnt cost a penny! The easiest way is to repeat a certain exercise routinely, whether youre jumping, galloping whilst on a hack or an hour of a practising a dressage test. You should measure your horses heart rate before the exercise, immediately after, then upon finishing the exercise, stand him for 2 minutes and take the heart rate. Continue measuring every 2 minutes until his heart rate is back down to what it was before the exercise. An indication of good training will be shown by the heart rate after exercise returning to the resting rate more quickly.