Sleep quality and quantity and their associations with age, salivary cortisol and abnormal behaviours: a preliminary field study in racing thoroughbreds.

Abstract

Sleep plays a key role in both physical recovery and welfare. However, sleep patterns remain poorly documented in animals, particularly in athletic horses. This study aimed to provide a detailed description of sleep quantity and quality in training Thoroughbred racehorses and to investigate their relationships with age, abnormal behaviours, and cortisol. Thirteen Thoroughbreds (2-7 years old) were continuously monitored in their home environment over three consecutive days. An ethogram was used to quantify the two main phases of sleep: Non Rapid Eye Movement sleep (NREM) and Rapid Eye Movement sleep (REM), as well as sleep interruptions (from day 1 at 12:00 a.m. to day 3 at 12:00 a.m.). Sleep Quality Indices (SQI), defined as the quantity of sleep divided by the number of sleep interruptions (SI), were calculated. Behavioural observations of four indicators of poor welfare (alertness, stereotypies, inactivity, aggressiveness towards humans) were performed using scan sampling, and salivary cortisol was measured each morning. Linear models were used to assess the links between sleep quantity and quality, age, mean cortisol, and abnormal behaviours. Sleep quantity was significantly associated with age: positively for total NREM sleep (ANOVA: {chi}{superscript 2} = 5.26, p < 0.05) and, negatively for total REM sleep (ANOVA: {chi}{superscript 2} = 4.46, p <0.05) and total recumbency duration (ANOVA: {chi}{superscript 2} = 5.68, p < 0.05), suggesting an age-related shift favouring NREM over REM. Morning cortisol concentrations and the frequency of abnormal behaviours were significantly higher in horses with lower sleep quality (cortisol: Total SQI, ANOVA: F = 5.26, p < 0.05; Combined SQI, ANOVA: F = 5.40, p < 0.05; abnormal behaviours: Total SQI, ANOVA: F = 4.07, p = 0.074), pointing to a potential link between stress or altered welfare and poorer sleep quality. These findings suggest that, whilst the type and duration of equine sleep may be mainly affected byage, sleep quality is associated with both cortisol levels and the expression of abnormal behaviours, indicating that poor sleep quality may be linked to poor welfare in this population of horses. Thus, sleep appears to be closely linked with racehorse welfare, highlighting the need for further investigation into how it is influenced by factors such as husbandry, training load, recovery, and performance.