The Official "Speed Gene" thread.

[Patuxet]

Pan Zareta wrote: [i]"No haplotypes with the C variant, with or without the SINE insertion, were found in the Morgan or Standardbred."[/i]

This really surprises me. In the 1870s and 80s, for example, Leland Stanford, in a major push to create trotters with early speed, mated his Standardbred stallion Electioneer with a wide variety of mares, many of which contained an admixture of Thoroughbred and Morgan blood. Some of the latter were provided by my great-grandfather who, like his father and grandfather before him, developed and raced Morgan-line trotters in Vermont.

[Pan Zareta]

Pan Zareta write: [i]"No haplotypes with the C variant, with or without the SINE insertion, were found in the Morgan or Standardbred."[/i]

This really surprises me. In the 1870s and 80s, for example, Leland Stanford, in a major push to create trotters with early speed, mated his Standardbred stallion Electioneer with a wide variety of mares, many of which contained an admixture of Thoroughbred and Morgan blood. Some of the latter were provided by my great-grandfather who, like his father and grandfather before him, developed and raced Morgan-line trotters in Vermont.

Evidence from other reports suggests that the 'C' variant and the SINE insertion probably occurred at much lower frequency in the TB poplation of the 1870's and 80's than in the contemporary TB population.

[vineyridge]

I call bullsh*t on the notion that a shetland pony is the source of the C allele. The authors forgot all the North American horses that entered the European breeding population that derive from the American Running Horse.

[Pan Zareta]

Iirc, the hypothesis proposed 3 yrs ago was that the TB founder population and Shetland rec'd. the 'C' allele from a common source population. It's not beyond the realm of possibility that the same source population could have introduced it into the 17th & early 18th cent. American running horse as well but I think it's premature to point to any particular population, or conclude that that only one source population was responsible for introducing the 'C' allele and the SINE into the TB.