23 January 2010

Taipei Times

A speed gene in horses is enabling thoroughbred owners to sort would-be sprinters from plodders from just a teaspoonful of the galloper's blood.

Scientists at University College Dublin matched the genetic code of 179 race winners with performance on the track to identify variants of the muscle mass-regulating myostatin gene that predict a horse's optimum racing distance.

The research is the first known characterization of a gene contributing to a specific athletic trait in thoroughbreds, the authors said in the study, published on Wednesday in the Public Library of Science Journal PLoS ONE. Commercialization of the test may alter the course of a multibillion-dollar industry whose breeding practices have remained little changed for centuries, the researchers said.

"Breeders currently rely on combining successful bloodlines together, hoping that the resulting foal will contain that winning combination of genes," said Emmeline Hill, a geneticist at the university and the study's lead author. "Whether those winning genes have or have not been inherited could only be surmised by observing the racing and breeding success of a horse over an extended period of years."

The research was funded by the Science Foundation Ireland, the study said.

For 1,000 euros (US$1,400), owners may submit a 5-mililiter sample of their horse's blood to Hill's Equinome lab to test whether the animal has inherited a specific myostatin mutation conferring speed for short-distance races, staying power for middle distances or stamina for longer events more than 2.1km, she said yesterday in a telephone interview.

Equinome was co-founded last year by Hill and Jim Bolger, an Irish racehorse trainer and breeder, to commercialize the gene test and pursue research on horse performance genetics. The company plans to begin offering the test at the end of this month, a university statement said.

The test results, returned in about three weeks, also will help breeders make better-informed decisions on which mares to mate with which stallions, and tell whether a foal has a genetic predilection for early maturity, advantageous for racing as a two-year-old, she said.

"It takes out a lot of the guesswork and minimizes the risk of any future investment you may have for that horse," Hill said, adding that training and racing strategies also influence success on the track. "This is a test for what your horse will be good at, not how good he will be."

Hill's research follows the completion three years ago of the Horse Genome Project in which more than 100 scientists in 20 countries collaborated to define the DNA sequence of the domestic horse.

 

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/sport/archives/2010/01/23/2003464178

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