The aim of the study was to investigate the effects of rider's body weight, riding experience and sex on the response in physiological, hematological and biochemical parameters of the Lipizzan horse before and after moderate physical activity. For the experiment, 6 horses of Lipizzan breed were used, which were ridden in a 30-min work test (10 min walk, 10 min trot and 10 min canter) by two riders with different body weight, experience in dressage riding and gender. The first rider (first work test) was male, had 21 years of dressage riding experience, and represented a load of 20% of the horses' own body mass. The second rider (second working test) was female, with 6 years of dressage experience, and represented 15% of the horses' own body mass. Our results showed that the horses under the first rider had a significant increase in heart rate and blood lactate concentration. For other parameters analyzed, the differences between the working tests were not large enough to be statistically significant, although we observed slightly higher values under the first rider for most of the parameters analyzed. We also proved that moderate physical activity increased most of the analyzed parameters.
|