Two horses suffered heat stress and some others needed to be hosed several times to cool down at the Cromwell race meeting on Sunday.
Many on course thought the temperature felt more like 30degC or higher than the 28degC recorded by MetService.
Veterinarians Peter Gillespie and Annemarie Wezenbeek said it was uncomfortable in the swab box. The swab box has a corrugated iron roof.
''With a horse in the (swab) box and door closed, it could have got to 40degC,'' Gillespie said.
He added the heat was the reason eight of the 10 horses swabbed were unable to provide urine samples. Instead, the eight had blood samples taken from them.
''The swab box turned into a sauna,'' Wezenbeek said.
Some trainers sought advice from the veterinarians when noticing their horse's recovery rate, after racing, was slow.
Little ventilation in loose boxes on hot days was a factor in horses recovering slowly after racing, Wezenbeek said.
Some horses on Sunday were sweating and blowing an hour after racing.
Stopover, trained in Christchurch by Shane Marr, was one of the horses treated by the veterinarians.
''The heat really affected him. He raced disappointingly and was quite distressed,'' Marr said.
''He got 2 litres of saline fluid into him after the race and that picked him up quickly.''
Marr and his team headed back to Christchurch an hour after the last race.
Gillespie said Sunday was the hottest day he had spent at a race meeting in 30 years of veterinary work."
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