Performance of eventing horses fed high fat diet

Abstract

The objective of this study was to the evaluate physiological, hematological and biochemical parameters of eventing horses fed diets containing soybean oil and submitted to physical effort tests. Twelve horses were used in a completely randomized design with two diets and six replications. The diets used were: diet without soybean oil inclusion (control) and diet with inclusion of 10% soybean oil. The experiment lasted 82 days, with three exercise tests: at the beginning, 60th and 82th day of the experiment. There were five data collections for each test: before the test with the horses at rest, immediately after the test, and at 10, 20 and 120 minutes after each test. Body temperature and rate heart were taken and blood samples were collected to evaluate hematological and biochemical variables.The mean values of the physiological, metalogical and biochemical parameters were submitted to non-parametric analysis.The inclusion of soybean oil only altered the γ-glutamyltransferase (GGT) and creatinine concentration in function time of intake of the diet. There was effect of trainings time on the horses conditioning that improved with reduction in the lactate concentration while the glucose concentration increased at the last exercise test.