Endurance race equines performance fed diets with oil levels

Abstract

In order to study the endurance equine performance, experimental diets composed by five increasing soybean oil levels (control, 6, 12, 18, 24% of the concentrate) were given. The following variables were analyzed: lactate concentration (LA), Glucose (GL), Cardiac frequency (FC) and rectal temperature (TR). Twenty Arabian horses were used, 9.5 ±5.5 years old, weight 400 ± 30 kg, undergone to an 80 Km endurance race simulation in a treadmill. The endurance was divided in four rings (phases) with 20 km each. There was no effect (p>0.05) of the oil addition but there was an effect (P<0.05) of distance on the LA, TR, GL variables. For the FC variable, we observed the effect (p<0.05) of the soybean addition and the distance. The soybean oil addition upper than 6% in the concentrate maintained lower the cardiac frequency, favoring the endurance horse performance. This lower cardiac frequency could suggest that animal lasted longer time in aerobic metabolism, situation that was confirmed by the non exponential increase in the lactate concentration and the increase in the glucose concentration. The oil favored the endurance horse performance.