As a horse owner we should know our horses ‘norms’ when it comes to cardiovascular health, normal resting heart rate, normal working heart rate and how long it takes our horse to recover and bring heart rate back to ‘normal resting rate’.

Knowing our horses norms can help us detect if there is a cardiovascular issue such as, atrial fibrillation, atrial premature contractions, ventricular premature contractions, etc. Many heart murmurs and changes in arrhythmias is common in horses and are usually not clinically significant, but knowing these things about your horse can help you to condition them better as athletes and make you aware of their specific needs.