Genetic improvement of speed across distance categories in thoroughbred racehorses in Great Britain
dc.contributor.author | Sharman, P | |
dc.contributor.author | Wilson, AJ | |
dc.date.accessioned | 2023-10-11T14:58:16Z | |
dc.date.issued | 2023-05-27 | |
dc.date.updated | 2023-10-11T14:25:49Z | |
dc.description.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 breeding values are nonetheless increasing across cohorts born between 1995 and 2012 (and racing from 1997 to 2014). For all three race distance categories, estimated rates of genetic improvement are statistically significant and also greater than can be explained by drift. Taken together our results show genetic improvement for thoroughbred speed is ongoing but slow, likely due to a combination of long generation times and low heritabilities. Additionally, estimates of realised selection intensities raises the possibility that the contemporary selection emerging from the collective actions of horse breeders is weaker than previously assumed, particularly over long distances. We suggest that unmodelled common environment effects may have upwardly biased estimates of heritability, and thus expected selection response, previously. | en_GB |
dc.format.extent | 79-85 | |
dc.identifier.citation | Vol. 131, No. 1, pp. 79-85 | en_GB |
dc.identifier.doi | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41437-023-00623-8 | |
dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/10871/134214 | |
dc.identifier | ORCID: 0000-0002-5045-2051 (Wilson, Alastair J) | |
dc.language.iso | en | en_GB |
dc.publisher | Springer Nature | en_GB |
dc.relation.url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37244934 | en_GB |
dc.rights | © The Author(s) 2023. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. | en_GB |
dc.subject | Animal breeding | en_GB |
dc.subject | Evolutionary genetics | en_GB |
dc.subject | Quantitative trait | en_GB |
dc.title | Genetic improvement of speed across distance categories in thoroughbred racehorses in Great Britain | en_GB |
dc.type | Article | en_GB |
dc.date.available | 2023-10-11T14:58:16Z | |
dc.identifier.issn | 0018-067X | |
exeter.place-of-publication | England | |
dc.description | This is the final version. Available on open access from Springer Nature via the DOI in this record. | en_GB |
dc.description | Data availability: The data that support the findings of this study were used under license from TBGenerations Limited, and so are not publicly available. The authors can be contacted about data access. | en_GB |
dc.identifier.eissn | 1365-2540 | |
dc.identifier.journal | Heredity | en_GB |
dc.rights.uri | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ | en_GB |
dcterms.dateAccepted | 2023-05-03 | |
rioxxterms.version | VoR | en_GB |
rioxxterms.licenseref.startdate | 2023-05-27 | |
rioxxterms.type | Journal Article/Review | en_GB |
refterms.dateFCD | 2023-10-11T14:55:44Z | |
refterms.versionFCD | VoR | |
refterms.dateFOA | 2023-10-11T14:58:17Z | |
refterms.panel | A | en_GB |
refterms.dateFirstOnline | 2023-05-27 |
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Except where otherwise noted, this item's licence is described as © The Author(s) 2023. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.