Crossbreed genetic performance study in the eventing horse competition

Abstract

Eventing is an equestrian discipline combining dressage, show jumping and cross-country exercises. The Spanish Sport Horse (SSH) was used in this study as an example to develop a method to ascertain the influence of parental breeds on particular performances by linking their parental genetic contribution with the individual phenotype value computing the optimal breed contribution for each trait evaluated in eventing. Data included 1220 eventing records from 210 SSH animals. The genetic contribution of six main founder populations were computed for each SSH: the Spanish Purebreed (SPB), Arab Horse (A), Thoroughbred (TB), Selle Français (SF), German breeds (G) and North(-west) European (N) breeds. For this analysis we used BLUP (best linear unbiased predictor) animal models for five defined traits and for the total score. The genetic contribution as linear and quadratic adjustment and the interaction between genetic contributions were included as covariates in the genetic model to separate the possible combining ability from the breeding values. The optimal breed genetic contribution for each trait was maximised by using a simplex method. The best combination for conformation was 51% SPB and 49% N, for cross-country aptitude 23% SPB and 77% N, for dressage 48% SF and 52% N, and for show jumping 64% A and 36% N. For cross-country the best performance was predicted using 100% N genetic contribution and for the total score of 24% SF and 76% N. The combination of two breeds (group of breeds) seemed to be the best option for most of the traits. Although the results should be interpreted with caution, the importance of this paper is that it can be considered as a starting point of the analysis. The methodology applied here performed nicely in searching for the best contribution of several breeds to find the best combination for particular interests and could, therefore, be useful for other species/populations.