The International Association of Future Horse Breeding (IAFH) has launched the world's largest genomically supported breeding value estimation system.
Until now, breeding selection has been based largely on the fact that the desired traits have been assessed and recorded with sufficient certainty. The hope was that environmental effects would not obscure the true hereditary traits too much. Genomic analysis now offers the invaluable advantage of being able to directly read the horse's genotype for many traits to determine its hereditary predispositions, thus enabling a much more reliable breeding selection
to be made.
This is a joint project of Germany's major horse breeding societies.
IAFH
The IAFH has achieved an important interim goal with its cross-association cooperation. Founded in 2017, the IAFH was established with the clear objective of developing genomically supported applications for sport horse breeding and investing in the necessary research and development work for this purpose.
The association includes the Oldenburg breeding associations (OL, OS), the Holstein Association, the Westphalian Stud Book, the Trakehner Association, the Hanoverian Association and the German Sport Horse (DSP), as well as the VIT computing centre.
Breeding Planning
The new system is a real milestone in modern horse breeding, because for the first time characteristics of external appearance, performance and health can be directly linked to genetic dispositions. With the publication of genomically supported breeding values for characteristics from the linear description, valuable information is available to breeders information that they can incorporate into their selection and breeding decisions.
An online pairing programme between mare and stallion has been developed that suggests a selection of suitable breeding partners for mares. This can be varied according to the breeder's specific breeding goals in their own online account. The final decision on the desired stallion is still made by the breeder. The IAFH breeding values of the stallions are now available to all breeders of the IAFH member associations free of charge in the respective online stallion distribution plan.
Extensive database
The database is based on information gathered by the IAFH after 14 years of systematic data collection on individual criteria that may be relevant to breeding decisions. These include 28 conformation, 19 movement and 12 jumping characteristics, for which the linear profiles of a total of almost 84,000 horses are used for breeding classification.
The data was contributed by six horse breeding associations, which cover the majority The data was contributed by six horse breeding associations, which cover the majority of German warmblood breeding. A pool of over 130,000 genotyped horses enables the assignment of conformation and performance traits to specific genotypes, which is ensured by the vit computing centre using state-of-the-art evaluation methods.
Focus on health
In addition to breeding selection for conformation and performance, genomic breeding value estimation pursues another extremely important goal: improving the
health and resilience of the horse population. Anyone who works with horses knows that health problems can destroy a horse's value in an instant – not to mention the veterinary costs incurred.
This is where genomically supported breeding value estimation for health traits could provide invaluable services. The necessary foundations for this have been laid by genome research, and a so-called ‘SNP chip’ with the important gene loci is available. Unfortunately, however, there is still a lack of sufficient horse data to allow certain diseases or health defects to be reliably assigned to precisely defined genotypes. This is precisely what is now being worked on intensively. A breakthrough in this area would be a quantum leap for the entire horse breeding industry.
-- press release