Lower Airway Disease in the Athletic Horse

The airways are the first part of the pathway in the oxygen transport chain that is critical to excellent athletic performance, and the lower airways are considered the final gatekeeper before oxygen enters the blood and carbon dioxide exits. Horses are blessed with large airways and lungs that allow them to be superb athletes, but the down side of this largesse on the part of evolution is that unless they are truly elite athletes they may withstand noninfectious disease of the lower respiratory tract for months to years before the owner or trainer notices. The two conditions of the lower respiratory tract that affect the athletic horse during exercise are exercise-induced pulmonary hemorrhage and inflammatory airway disease. The former may be considered, at least at the onset, as a problem of physiology rather than a disease, and the latter is a disease primarily of domestication: both are widespread among the athletic horse population and account for an impressive number of horses that fail to perform to their potential. Because of the high demands for oxygen in the athletic horse, even minor insults to the oxygen-carrying capacity of the body can affect performance, so it is of critical importance to keep the lungs as healthy as possible.