Research into cooling in other mammals compared to horses has brought
out the fact that evaporative cooling via sweating is the MOST
important way for the horse to cool off. Horses sweat differently
than others, including humans, in that the horse needs a period of
warming up to activate the sweating process. Brief exercise with no
warm-up is possible (flight response), but long term exercise needs this
critical warm-up period to match blood flow with cooling. A slower
rise in body temp. results in better tolerance of a heat load.
A recent study from South Africa showed that oxygen consumption during
exercise and post-exercise (20 min post) heart rates were
significantly lower in TB horses that were warmed up vs. ones that
were not. The bottom line: evaporative cooling....sweating and cold
water that is continually applied and scraped off are the fastest
ways to cool your equine athlete!Cheers...Lynn
Lynn E. Taylor, MS, PhD
Assistant Professor
Dept. of Equine Science
Otterbein College
Westerville, Oh 43081
ltaylor@otterbein.edu