How Horse Genetics Relate to Equestrian Disciplines

A scientific basis behind breeding can allow for more informed decisions as horse breeding and equestrian sports evolve.
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How Horse Genetics Relate to Equestrian Disciplines
Having a scientific basis for breeding can allow breeders to make more informed selection decisions as horse breeding and equestrian sports evolve. | Photo: iStock
Finding just the right horse for your favorite discipline might be a matter of not only his training but also his genetics. While many dressage and show jumping horses, for instance, come from the same breeds and even families, Danish and Dutch geneticists have found that these two disciplines are mostly explained by different gene sets.

That seems to be especially true for horses at the highest level of competition, said Gabriel Rovere, PhD, of the Animal Breeding and Genomic Centre at Wageningen University in Wageningen, The Netherlands, and the Aarhus University Centre for Quantitative Genetics and Genomics Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, in Tjele, Denmark.

Few studies have analyzed the genetic correlation between dressage and show jumping with a significant amount of competition data, said Rovere. “In general, low genetic correlations between both disciplines have been reported,” he said. “But in studbooks that specialized the horses in either one discipline or the other, the higher the level of competition, the closer to zero the genetic correlation. In some cases, it was even unfavorable.”

Rovere and his fellow researchers analyzed the performance data for more than 100,000 horses competing in show jumping, dressage, or both, between 1992 and 2013

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Passionate about horses and science from the time she was riding her first Shetland Pony in Texas, Christa Lesté-Lasserre writes about scientific research that contributes to a better understanding of all equids. After undergrad studies in science, journalism, and literature, she received a master’s degree in creative writing. Now based in France, she aims to present the most fascinating aspect of equine science: the story it creates. Follow Lesté-Lasserre on Twitter @christalestelas.

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