Intensity of Exercise During Early-season Competition in Three-day-event Horses Assessed Using KER ClockIt Sport Smartphone Application
Joe D. Pagan1, Kathleen O’Neill1, Natalie Ireland1, and Mike Davies2
1Kentucky Equine Research, Versailles, Kentucky, USA; 2ClockItEQ, Ltd., Perth, Western Australia
Presented 25th Symposium of the Equine Science Society, 2017
Training protocols should be designed taking into account the intensity and duration of exercise during competition. This study measured heart rate (HR), duration, speed, and distance traveled during the cross-country phase of 32 competitions held in the early stages of the 2015 American eventing season using a novel smartphone application (KER ClockItTM Sport; Kentucky Equine Research, Versailles, KY). A Bluetooth-equipped heart-rate monitor (Polar H7) was used to measure and transmit HR data to the application. Twenty-eight horses competing at four different competition levels participated in this study. All horses were trained in Ocala, Florida; Aiken, South Carolina; or Southern Pines, North Carolina, and they competed at six different venues in Georgia, Florida, and North Carolina. The competitions were held in late February, March, and early April 2015. Exercise intensity was defined based on specific HR zones expressed as a percent of maximal HR (HRmax), which was assumed to be 220 BPM. Measurements were collected for the entire cross-country phase of each three-day event, including the warm-up period. Horses typically warmed up for approximately 30–45 min. Horses competing at Training, Preliminary, Intermediate, and Advanced levels spent an average of 3.3, 4.5, 2.9, and 3.6 minutes in HR zone 5 (175-200 bpm), respectively. Horses competing at the Intermediate and Advanced levels spent an average of 2.8 and 4.3 minutes with HR greater than 200 (zone 6). Advanced horses spent significantly more time in HR zone 6 than either the Training or Preliminary horses. There was no significant difference in how much time horses at each level spent in HR zones 4 and 5. During the cross-country phase, horses competing at all levels spent several minutes at HRs greater than 80% of HRmax, and Intermediate and Advanced horses spent a significant amount of time with HR > 90% HRmax. These data suggest that training protocols for all levels of event horses should contain exercise intensities in these higher HR zones.
Time (min) spent in each heart rate (HR) zone during the cross-country phase of competition (mean ± SE).
| Training | Preliminary | Intermediate | Advanced | ||||||
| % HRmax | HR zone | mean | n | mean | n | mean | n | mean | n |
| <50% | 1 | 16.5 ± 3.1a | 9 | 30.8 ± 2.9b,c | 6 | 33.6 ± 12.9b,c | 3 | 20.4 ± 1.7a | 14 |
| 50%-60% | 2 | 4.2 ± 0.6a | 9 | 4.08 ± 0.4a | 6 | 14.8 ± 9.1b | 3 | 7.1 ± 1.0a | 14 |
| 60%-70% | 3 | 2.8 ± 0.6a | 9 | 4.2 ± 0.5a | 6 | 5.2 ± 1.6a | 3 | 5.9 ± 0.8a | 14 |
| 70%-80% | 4 | 3.0 ± 0.5a | 9 | 2.5 ± 0.5a | 6 | 4.8 ± 1.5a | 3 | 3.4 ± 0.4a | 14 |
| 80%-90% | 5 | 3.3 ± 0.6a | 9 | 4.5 ± 0.5a | 6 | 2.9 ± 0.8a | 3 | 3.6 ± 0.4a | 14 |
| >90% | 6 | 0.8 ± 0.4a | 9 | 0.7 ± 0.2a | 6 | 2.8 ± 1.2b | 3 | 4.3 ± 0.5b | 14 |
| a,b,c Values in the same row with different superscripts are different (p<.05) | |||||||||