Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Heart rate variability and soundness


Above is an enhanced image of an EKG where one can calculate the variability of time between individual heart beats in a thoroughbred. Heart Rate Variability, or HRV, is important because the greater the variability - the more control the nervous system exhibits, which is a good thing.
Recently there was published a wonderful article about this concept, drawing conclusions between HRV and catastrophic breakdowns in eventing horses:
The cool thing is that you don't need fancy, lab quality EKG equipment to get these figures, the HR/GPS monitors I use cost just $599, set up in seconds, and analyze this information for you.

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