Genetic improvement of speed across distance categories in thoroughbred racehorses in Great Britain.

ABSTRACT: Several studies over recent decades have reported a lack of contemporary improvement in thoroughbred racehorse speed, despite apparent additive genetic variance and putatively strong selection. More recently, it has been shown that some phenotypic improvement is ongoing, but rates are low in general and particularly so over longer distances. Here we used pedigree-based analysis of 692,534 records from 76,960 animals to determine whether these phenotypic trends are underpinned by genetic selection responses, and to evaluate the potential for more rapid improvement. We show that thoroughbred speed in Great Britain is only weakly heritable across sprint (h² = 0.124), middle-distance (h² = 0.122) and long-distance races (h² = 0.074), but that mean predicted bre

SUBMITTER: Sharman P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10313675 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature