Equine Genetics - the state of play

[brogers]

Scientific American have published an article on the 'state of play' in terms of thoroughbred genetics and performance. An interesting read....

http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... o-genetics

[Tappiano]

I guess I am going to be in the minority by saying I never thought the Green Monkey had "top notch" bloodlines.
All that aside, I never referred to HIM as IT.

"It ran only four times and never won a race."

Byron perhaps you could elaborate on what they used to assign "elite races"?

[brogers]

Byron perhaps you could elaborate on what they used to assign "elite races"?

Tappiano

That is where you are going to find differences in study methodology and most likely outcomes.

When we set up our study we defined elite as G1 winners that ran a 108 Beyer speed figure or better. So, they were really elite horses. The reason we did this is when we looked at it, the trainer/jockey effect was the least for this group when compared to others. Matthew Binns (The Genetic Edge) used roughly the same category. Hill (Equinome) used any stakes winner as an elite horse so they had Listed, G3 and G2 winners in the group they created their test on. We think that is a mistake as in Listed and G3 horses especially, the trainer of record makes a big difference, and on a given day, Listed races are often worse than a good handicap/allowance race. The trainer effect on those types of races runs at about 0.20 which is really high when you compare it to G1 races where it is about 0.10.

The first horses that everyone has really tested are now just two year olds (we tested a dozen three year olds when they were summer two year olds almost a year ago, one of which we liked ran in the KY Derby and another heads to the Canadian Oaks, but it is too small a sample to be definitive) so the next 12 months are really going to tell you what is going on.