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Genetic evaluation of sport horses in Britain

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BurgessC_2008redux.pdf (14.21Mb)
Date
2008
Author
Burgess, Charlotte
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Abstract
 
 
The genetic evaluation of sport horses is common practice on the Continent and in Ireland but, until now, has not been carried out in Great Britain. The aim of this project was to derive models for predicting breeding values for British bred sport horses and hence develop procedures for their evaluation. The research consisted predominantly of the estimation o f genetic and phenotypic parameters from two datasets; results from the Young Horse Evaluation Series (Y H E), which assesses 4 year old potential sport horses, and competition data on UK eventing horses. Eleven traits were measured in the YHE, including a veterinary score, conformation, paces and jumping ability. A small dataset led to some problems and meant that heritabilities could not be predicted, how ever, the predicted repeatabilities were sufficient in magnitude and precision to indicate that the Y HE may prove useful as a test o f individuals. A much larger and m ore comprehensive dataset was available for U K eventing horses. Penalty points from each of the three phases - dressage, show jumping and cross country - and overall com petition w ere converted to normal scores for analysis. Each phase was separated into 4 different grades of com petition - pre novice, novice, intermediate and advanced. Results show ed heritabilities significantly different from zero for all phases (0.02-0.23). Correlations between the grades for each phase w ere high, suggesting that it should be possible to predict a horse’s performance at advanced level by its performance at novice or pre novice level. For the first time, the proportions o f variance attributed to the rider, permanent environmental effect and genetics o f the horse w ere estimated separately. These estimates showed that for m ost grades and phases the m ost important component was the perm anent environmental effect, with the rider and genetics becoming more important as the grades become more challenging. This analysis allowed the successful prediction of estimated breeding values (EBVs), horse values (H V s) and rider values (RVs). Using these values, the intensity o f selection on sires, horses and riders progressing from the pre novice to advanced grades in each of the phases of eventing competition was investigated. The highest selection intensities were observed between intermediate and advanced grade (0.634-1.163). The lowest selection intensities w ere observed between pre novice and novice (0.018-0.352).
 
The main aim of this research was to create a model for the prediction of breeding values for British bred sport horses, an objective that was successfully achieved. Genetic and phenotypic parameters were estimated for the traits analysed and these w ere consistent with those contained in the literature. There were a number of novel aspects to this study, such as the separation of horse and rider in the model, allowing values to be assigned to each. This led on to another novel aspect o f the research which was the analysis o f within generation selection of sires, horses and riders moving through the grades of eventing competition. This study has met its objectives and also provided a platform for the launch o f further research into sport horse breeding in Britain
 
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/1842/27513
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  • Biological Sciences thesis and dissertation collection

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