Changes in blood lactate and heart rate in thoroughbred horses during swimming and running according to their stage of training.

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the change in the performance capacity of horses trained by running could be evaluated with a standardised swimming exercise test as well as by a standardised running exercise test. Seven two-year-old thoroughbred horses were trained by running for four months and were subjected to a standardised swimming exercise tolerance test before the training began and after two and four months of training in addition to the standardised running tolerance test after two and four months of training. The running training brought about a significant change in the correlation between the swimming speed of the horses and their blood lactate concentration, and the correlation between the blood lactate concentration and maximum heart rate and running speed also changed significantly after two months of training.