DOES MORPHOLOGY MAKE THE ATHLETE?: GENETIC ANALYSIS OF ARGENTINE POLO HORSES LINES

AZCONA, FLORENCIA; MOLINA, A.; PERAL GARCÍA, P.; DEMYDA-PEYRÁS, S.

Davos

Jornada; 72nd Annual Meeting of the European Federation of Animal Science; 2021

European Federation of Animal Science

The Argentine Polo horse is a breed widely recognized for its sporting aptitude. Its main purpose is the practice of polo, but horses also participate in morphological competitions where there are evaluated for conformation and functional correctness. Since function and morphology are related, there may be only minor differences between animals that obtained prizes in one or another competition. The objective of this study was to evaluate the genetic variability of horses rewarded in morphologic (M, n=969) and sports competitions (S, n=1,570), according to the criteria of the breeders’ association. Pedigree data (n=140,000 records) were used to calculate the inbreeding (F) and coancestry (f) coefficients, effective population size (Ne), the effective number of founders (Fe), and ancestors (Fa), and the proportion of effective founders (Fe/n). Both groups showed the same degree of average inbreeding (0.5% in M and S). However, f and Ne were higher in S than in M (0.89 vs 0.70%, P