Haematological and biochemical response in Iranian crossbred race horses at high speed exercise

ABSTRACT

Evaluation of exercise tolerance of horses in the restand post-exercise by measurement of changes in hematologicalfactors and enzyme activities.Comparative study.Nineteen Iranian cross-bred race horses aged 5 to 14years old and 350 to 450 Kg weight.Two blood samples were taken at rest and aftergalloping in 1 mile track .Auscultation of heart was done at restand immediately after exercise up to 60 minutes.Blood sampleswere submitted to laboratory for hematological and biochemicalexperiments.The commercial kits were used to measurement ofenzyme activities. T-student test,Analysis of variance,SPSSprogram.The mean of PCV,RBC values and,CPK,AST,and LDH activities at rest were obtained,36.60 +/- 3.3percent,6.8 +/- 0.88 million/microl,196.8 +/- 20.3micro/l, 233.78 +/- 29.73 micro/1 and 327.05 +/- 58.25 micro/1 respectively.The mean values of thesefactors after exercise were significantly increased to beforeexercise [p<0.05]. The mean of resting heart rate was36.10 +/- 5.54 bpm and the mean of maximum heart rate and heartrate in sixtinth minutes after exercise were 131.89 +/- 16.83 and42.36 +/- 11.70 bpm respectively,there is significant increase ofmaximum heart rate to resting heart rate [p<0.05]. Although there is significant increase inenzyme activities,but marked and pathological increase do notoccur and therefore there is no any evidence of muscular/cardiacdamage or poor performance.There are rather good capacity ofPC V and cardiac reserve in the horses with regard of submaximalexercise. Measurement of serum enzymes alone, are not reliablefor detection of poor performance.However,detection of suchfactors in the precence of acute damage or along with some otherfactors like PCV and HR are valuble for determination of poorperformance