{"id":35643,"date":"2017-06-27T10:56:32","date_gmt":"2017-06-27T00:56:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/?p=35643"},"modified":"2018-01-30T16:37:32","modified_gmt":"2018-01-30T05:37:32","slug":"breeding-for-amateurs-or-breeding-for-professionals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/2017\/06\/breeding-for-amateurs-or-breeding-for-professionals\/","title":{"rendered":"Breeding for Amateurs or Breeding for Professionals?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Christopher Hector looks at some interesting new research….<\/h1>\n

As long as I have been writing about Sporthorse breeding, this question has been one of the ongoing sources of debate. As far back as 2001, I interviewed Dr Gerd Lehmann who was for 30 years \u2013 from 1966 until 1995 \u2013 the head of the Westfalien State Stud and is the man credited with turning a basically agricultural group of horses into the modern sport horse type.<\/p>\n

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At the time, Dr Lehmann was something of a voice in the wilderness. When the idea of breeding two separate streams of horses – dressage and showjumping – was hugely fashionable, Dr Lehmann argued that a balance was needed, and he also argued that the professional \/ amateur division was another example of wrong thinking:<\/p>\n

“Top horses should be rideable for everyone. The breeders are absolutely wrong if they think they can sell all the rubbish to the leisure riders. It is really wrong to think that the horse that makes the housewife happy riding in the forest, can\u2019t breed high performance horses \u2013 the horse of the housewife must have really high rideability.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now it would seem that science has come out on Dr Lehmann’s side (interestingly, his suggestion that dressage horses needed a dose of jumping blood, again heresy at the time, is now borne out, as any examination of the top dressage horses’ pedigrees will show)<\/em>. Dr Anne Ricard, a researcher with the French Institute for Horses and Equitation at the French National Institute for Agricultural Research backs up the view that there is no conflict between breeding horses for the amateur and the elite markets. Dr Ricard presented her findings last year at the 2016 French Equine Research Day.<\/p>\n

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The research would seem to be very well based. Following a 2012 study in which they examined genomic performance indicators, Ricard and colleagues carried out genetic analysis on bloodlines and performance results of nearly 100,000<\/strong> French showjumpers, over a five year period.<\/p>\n

They also looked at four categories: young horses in amateur competitions, young horses in elite competitions, adult horses in amateur competitions, and adult horses in elite competitions.<\/p>\n

A complex mathematical equation linked each horse’s performance to that of the horses from the same bloodline, bringing in another 250,000 horses into the equations. Using this data, researchers were able to plot how certain families or bloodlines compared to each other.<\/p>\n

The researchers found very little difference in performance indexes between the elite and amateur categories by bloodline, and along the way, also found that performance as a young horse was a good predictor of performance as an adult horse, regardless of whether that horse was in an elite or amateur category.<\/p>\n

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High level and amateur competition are compatible objectives for jumping horses<\/h1>\n

A. Ricard, INRA, UMR 1313, 78350 Jouy-en-Josas, IFCE,
\nRecherche et innovation, 61310 \u00a0Exmes<\/p>\n

Objective<\/h1>\n

To estimate genetic correlation in jumping competition:<\/p>\n

* between young and adult performances<\/p>\n

* between amateur and high level performances<\/p>\n

Material and methods<\/h1>\n