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Just like us, horses have an intestinal microbiota. In the horse athlete, its effect on energy metabolism has already been proven. Several studies show the influence of the diversity of the microbiota in different situations: foal weaning, endurance exercise, stress of the horse in the box compared to the pasture.

However, researchers lack a full understanding of the interactions between the microorganisms that make up the horse's intestinal flora and the host organism in order to understand all the subtleties of their influence.

This is why researchers from INRAE, in collaboration with EnVA, have established a true catalog of the genes of all the microorganisms that make up the intestinal microbiota. To do this, they analyzed the intestinal microbiota of 11 endurance horses, and found more than 25 million different genes belonging to 4696 different genera of bacteria.

These millions of genes are like a puzzle that they had to assemble by bioinformatics. The scientists assembled 329 new complete bacterial genomes.

Mathematical models were used to cross-reference these new data with physiological, cardiac and blood analyses of horses undergoing exercise. The result is clear: there is a link between the composition of the microbiota and cardiovascular fitness during racing, with a diverse microbiota having a beneficial effect. Horses with a less diverse microbiota, especially rich in bacteria of the genus Lachnospiraceae, recover less well after endurance exercise.

A new path is opening up towards an even more individualized animal diet, to promote the well-being of horses and their health, and naturally facilitate their potential for sporting performance. This could be achieved through better adapted nutritional intakes and the rational use of probiotics.

Contact 

• Nuria Mach (e-mail)