The importance of heart rate analysis

Why is it important to monitor the heart rate of your horse?

Heart rate monitoring is a widely used method in almost every sport, and yet it is still rare to see it used in the equestrian world, particularly at amateur level, despite its proven utility and efficiency when it comes to monitoring horses’ health and performances.

Indeed, the use of such a tool should not be reserved to endurance or racehorses, as when interpreted correctly, heart rate can provide useful information for all riders of all disciplines.

At rest, the heart rate of a horse usually lies between 30 and 44 bpm, and can vary with the temperament and/or size of the horse. During effort, simply measuring the heart rate is usually not enough to give us the information we need. It is also interesting to know that the maximum heart rate of a horse cannot be improved by training.

That is why we developed a series of calculations, simplified in one display on our application, that will allow you to measure the intensity of your training session, distinguishing between periods when your horse simply burned calories, when you worked on improving his cardio, and when you worked him at high intensity.

Furthermore, studying the variability of your horse’s heart rate compared to some other factors such as the average canter speed, will give you an overview of your horse’s condition at a specific time. Thanks to a simple display of factors on our application, you will be able to know whether you need to further improve your horse’s physical condition for the next competition for instance.

To conclude, a strong volatility of the horse’s heart rate over the same exercise could be the sign of edema, abscess or other physical anomalies. Our application will notify you of this so you can call your veterinarian and treat the problem immediately.

The Seaver team