The future success and long-term health of a racehorse can be diagnosed by the diversity of its gut microbiome when it’s just one month old!
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“You are what you eat” as the old adage goes, but .. does this apply to animals, too? Animals like … horses?
Of course it does, and if you’re a horse lover (or a horseplayer), you will be especially interested in this new report. This new study analyzed poop produced by more than 50 racehorse foals to measure and classify the bacteria present in their digestive tracts during the first three years of their lives, and compared their microbial diversity to their racing success and overall health.
The recent study (ref) found that the diversity of microbes present in a foal’s gut when it was just four weeks old correlates to its success on the racetrack: greater microbial diversity correlates with greater racing success — combined with better long-term health.
“Gut health is absolutely critical,” summarized the study’s senior co-author, equine epidemiologist and practitioner Chris Proudman, a professor of clinical veterinary medicine at the University of Surrey. Professor Proudman’s research focuses on the role of gut bacteria in intestinal health and disease in horses, particularly racehorses.
“There is a growing understanding that what happens in human guts and in animal guts — horses, in this case — has a profound influence on many aspects of health and disease,” Professor Proudman elaborated.
But the overall diversity of gut microbes is not only about their presence.
“It’s also about timing,” Professor Proudman explained. “The nature of the gut bacteria in those first few weeks of life predicts the future health, and the future performance, of these horses.”
Racehorses provide an excellent opportunity to study a horse’s gut microbiome. Breeders and trainers of thoroughbreds typically keep highly detailed records of each animal’s birth, diet and health, as well as any veterinary care they receive. Additionally, owners and trainers record how their horses perform on the racecourse during the first three years of their lives, including where they placed in each race and the total prize money earned, and these records function as a measure of their horses’ athletic performances.
“Anything we can investigate — to help them be in as good shape as possible — is a really good opportunity for us,” said Jane Black, the co-owner of Chasemore stud farm in Surrey, which bred some of the foals that participated in this study. Other foals born on 4 more stud farms and trained at 27 different training yards across the UK also participated in this study.
To do this study, Professor Proudman and his collaborators regularly collected fecal samples from each of the 52 equine study participants. Using modern cutting-edge technology, they used DNA fingerprinting on each of the 438 samples to create an evolving picture of the bacterial microbiome present in each foal’s gut.
“We can see the amount of bacteria present and identify the different types,” Professor Proudman said. “Then we compared that with our health data, and with our racing performance data.”
Each foal’s respiratory, gastrointestinal, orthopaedic and soft-tissue health issues were tracked from birth to age three. The study concluded that the more diverse the gut bacteria in a four-week-old foal, the fewer health problems — particularly respiratory diseases — that the horse suffered in later life. Additionally, Professor Proudman and collaborators also found a direct relationship between the number of different types of gut bacteria in a month-old foal and its performance on the racecourse when it was older. For example, they found that a higher abundance of Anaeroplasmataceae bacteria were associated with a higher official rating (an evaluation of a horse based on its past performances), and increased levels of Bacillaceae bacteria at 28 days old were linked to higher race placings.
What happens if a foal receives antibiotics early in their lives?
Predictably, foals treated with antibiotics in their first month of life had fewer types of bacteria in their guts than those who did not receive such treatments, and — perhaps not surprisingly, in view of this study — went on to win significantly less prize money in their racing careers compared to horses that had not received early antibiotic treatment. Additionally, foals who received antibiotics during their first 28 days of life had a significantly increased rate of developing a respiratory disease later on.
Professor Proudman said this discovery raised questions about the use of antibiotics, both in animals and in humans, in early life.
“We need to think about things that happen in those first few weeks of life — to make sure that animals and humans’ gut bacteria are in a good state at that stage,” Professor Proudman said.
“Minimising the risk of disease and injury is important for the welfare of racehorses, and maximising their athletic potential is important for their owners,” Professor Proudman remarked. “We have found that gut health, in particular the health of gut bacterial communities very early in life, exerts a profound and enduring impact on racehorse health and performance.”
It’s also interesting to note that low gut bacterial diversity in early life is associated with an increased risk of soft-tissue and orthopaedic issues later in life. But why? It’s possible that the health impacts of low gut bacterial diversity in early life are related to immunological priming. Immune priming is a process that improves an organism’s immune defences after exposure to a pathogen. This process can lead to better protection against subsequent infections with the same or different pathogens, but how this is related to racehorse performance — especially soft-tissue and orthopaedic issues — is currently not understood.
“Antibiotics are vital in treating infections and protecting the long-term health of foals; they do, however, need to be used responsibly,” pointed out the study’s other senior co-author, Roberto La Ragione, a Professor of Veterinary Microbiology and Pathology and Head of the School of Biosciences at the University of Surrey.
“Our study demonstrates that treatment with antibiotics can disrupt the healthy gut microbiome with long-term impacts on health and performance. The next part of our study will examine how we can minimise disruption of gut bacteria when antibiotics have to be used to treat infections.”
This study highlights important questions regarding development of probiotics that will enhance the gut health of foals in early life and to better understand how antibiotics can be used whilst preserving a horse’s gut health. Further, this study demonstrates a relationship between early-life gut bacterial communities and subsequent athletic performance that has implications for athletes of all species — including humans.
Source:
J. Leng, C. Moller-Levet, R. I. Mansergh, R. O’Flaherty, R. Cooke, P. Sells, C. Pinkham, O. Pynn, C. Smith, Z. Wise, R. Ellis, A. Couto Alves, R. La Ragione & C. Proudman (2024). Early-life gut bacterial community structure predicts disease risk and athletic performance in horses bred for racing, Scientific Reports 14: 17124 | doi:10.1038/s41598-024-64657-6
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