Has the Golden Age of Equine Exercise Physiology Passed and if so, Have We Answered All the Big Questions?

Equine exercise physiology is a discipline that emerged in the 1980s. It has enjoyed tremendous popularity. Areas of popularity in equine exercise physiology research have changed over the past 40 years for a variety of possible reasons, including funding, disappearance of research groups, and research interests. We are also now in a position where we can review earlier studies in a different, more informed light and consider which ones are still reliable and relevant and which ones may need to be considered differently based on more recent knowledge. Although traditionally popular areas in equine exercise research such as respiratory, cardiovascular, and muscular research have diminished, other areas such as biomechanics and locomotion and applied physiology have seen great growth. Although much has been achieved which has contributed to scientific understanding of the horse in relation to exercise and to welfare, some obvious areas remain poorly understood.