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>  It states that at low heart rates of
> 140, it is considered aerobic and the horse should be able to exercise
> at that rate and recover quickly. That seems a bit high to me. What is a
> good aerobic zone for the typical Arabian horse?
I've seen the number 150 quoted at numerous veterinary seminars.  Most of
the work I've seen has not been done on Arabs, but rather on TBs and
Standardbreds.  That said, both of those breeds do tend to have good-sized
hearts, so I'm not sure that the numbers would be that apt to vary for
Arabians.  (For instance, it is not uncommon for TBs to have resting rates
down in the low 20s...)

Like anything else, this number is going to vary over a range of some sort
for any breed, and will likely also have a bit of a range for a given
individual (and may alter a bit with increasing fitness as well), so this
is another one of those things where a person who is fine-tuning a
specific horse is going to have to do some experimentation to see where
that range lies.

Just as an illustration, the recovery numbers that were given for some of
the top horses at the WEC are typical of horses ridden within their
aerobic capability up until the last phase, and then asked to exceed it
somewhat at the end.  (Nothing wrong with this--just using it to
illustrate an example of managing a horse for recovery rates.)

Heidi



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