A horse with a musculoskeletal injury or one looking to improve fitness may be asked to swim; swimming is a low-impact way for a horse to regain strength and muscle tone.
However, since a horse exhales rapidly when being asked to swim, Dr. Tatiana Vinardell of the Equine Veterinary Medical Center in Doha, Qatar, wondered whether swimming a horse would increase the likelihood of exercise-induced pulmonary hemorrhage (EIPH), also called “bleeding.”
Though the exact reason a horse bleeds from his nose or trachea after exercise is unclear, the changing airway pressure associated with exercise may be to blame. Many horses that bleed have poor performance.
To determine whether horses that swam were more likely to bleed, Vinardell and colleagues used 15 healthy endurance horses in five intense free-swimming training sessions. The horses had their airways scoped one hour after swimming.
None of the 15 horses had blood present on endoscopy, suggesting that free swimming does not induce EIPH and may be a good conditioning tool for horses who suffer from EIPH. Horses with EIPH are often those who engage in high-intensity sports like racing, barrels, or polo.
Read more at PubMed.
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