Most body systems of the horse have some capacity to respond to physical training of the type used to improve fitness and performance in Thoroughbred racehorses. The art of training is of course assessing what each horse needs, when to start, when to back off and when to accept that you have reached a suitable level of fitness which should result in a horse being able to get close to achieving a performance consistent with its genetic potential. However, the one body system that training cannot improve on is the respiratory system and this article will highlight some of the implications of this.

Dr David Marlin (17 September 2008 - Issue number 9)