Walking A Horse Until Cooled Completely Proves To Be a Myth
Brought to you by the AAEP Horse Owner Education Committee
COOL SCIENCE (pun intended)!
An old myth wants us to believe that horses should be walked until they cool completely after exercise, even in the summer. However, a study from 2020 looked at five different ways to cool a horse after exercise: walking, walking with fans, walking with intermittent cold water application, walking with intermittent cold water application and scraping, and stationary with continuous tap water application.
As it turns out, the method that resulted in the quickest return to normal body temperature was stationary with continuous tap water application (2 minutes), while walking alone took the longest time for recovery (25 minutes).
Bottom line: enjoy your rides in the sun this summer but remain vigilant for signs of heat stress in your horse. If they look tired, it’s time for a drink, a cool bath, and a break in the shade.
Below is the link to the study from Japan, which was quite newsworthy when it was released in 2020, as it addresses scraping the horse, a longtime practice by horse owners.
The first words of the abstract: Horses need aggressive cooling to prevent exertional heat illness after strenuous exercise in hot and humid conditions. This study compared various methods for cooling horses in such conditions, testing the hypothesis that continual application of running water would be the most effective method to decrease core temperature.
Click here to read: A Comparison of Five Cooling Methods in Hot and Humid Environments in Thoroughbred Horses – ScienceDirect
