Abstract
The objectives of this thesis were to evaluate in practice workload, fitness and welfare of riding horses under work and training conditions. Chapter II presents an overview of the parameters used in earlier studies on training, behaviour and equine welfare, and describes the evaluation of the physiological and behavioural responses
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of horses in field work. Chapter III describes a study on the fitness and responses to training of young Friesian horses. The fitness of horses appeared to improve but there was wide heterogeneity in responses to training. A familial aggregation of heart rate (HR) response to training was identified in horses for the first time. Chapter IV describes a study monitoring the complete national selection of event horses and ponies during preparation for the European Championships in 2010 and 2011. Fitnessassessment provided a useful way to predict the potential risk of injury, since ‘good performers’ were less likely to get injured than ‘average performers’ and HR measured during conditioning training had predictive value for impending injury. Chapter V presents a study on riding school horses, which were monitored for their fitness, workload and the causes of temporary training breaks and premature training terminations.Untrained horses sustained injuries earlier in the training period than trained horses. Horses which were not given time off in response to minor injuries, were more likely to end the training period prematurely than horses that were immediately given a few days off. Chapter VI describes a study on the behavioural and physiological responses of horses encountering challenging objects with three different riders. ‘Matching’ horse-rider combinations exhibited less stress than ‘mismatch’ horse-rider combinations. HR was also a valuable tool for assessing the compliance of horses. Chapter VII reveals that experience is not a key factor in how police-horses handle stress. Horses showed almost no stress during the police-training tests. Since three of these tests reflected normal police work, the findings suggested that this type of work has no significant or detectable negative impact on the horse’s welfare. Chapter VIII demonstrates that during extreme duties, such as riot control training and night patrols the workload and stress of police-horses, were low and were again unlikely to cause behavioural problems and wastage. However, the rider’s control over an individual horse’s fear responses proved to be important in the stress that police-horses experience during challenging situations. Chapter IX describes a study on the stress that horses experience during air transport. HRs during air transport, were lower than those reported in studies on road transport. This supports the concept that air transport is probably more comfortable and less stressful for horses than road transport. Chapter X reviews the different methods used to evaluate the fitness of Warmblood sporthorses under field conditions. For event and dressage horses several types of exercise tests have been developed, but there are no validated methods for show jumping horses. In event horses, VLA4 is related to performance and impending injury. In riding horses, fitness level was also an important determinant for the occurrence of injuries.
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