THIS MONTH’S EXPERTS

EQUUS Consulting Editor Deb Bennett, PhD, is a 1984 graduate of the University of Kansas, and until 1992 was with the Smithsonian Institution. She is known as an authority on the classification, evolution, anatomy, and biomechanics of fossil and living horses. Her research interests include the history of domestication and world bloodlines and breeds. Her unique anatomy short-courses and horsemanship clinics are popular with both U.S. and international audiences.

E. Gus Cothran, PhD, earned his Bachelor of Science and masters degrees at North Texas State University and received his doctorate from the University of Oklahoma. He is professor emeritus in Veterinary Integrative Biosciences at Texas A&M University.

A native Kansan, James Lattimer, PhD, earned a bachelor of science in in Animal Science from Kansas State University and completed his masters in equine nutrition at Oklahoma State University. He later earned his doctorate in comparative nutrition at Kansas State University, where he now teaches undergraduate nutrition courses, coaches the Intercollegiate Horse Judging Team, conducts equine and comparativenutrition research and mentors graduate students who are pursuing advanced degrees with an equine or comparative-nutrition emphasis.

Born and raised in Kenya, Anthony P. Knight, BVSc, MS, DACVIM, received his veterinary degree at the University of Nairobi in 1968 and an MS from Colorado State University (CSU) in 1971 before accepting a faculty position in large animal medicine in CSU’s College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences. After 40 years as a CSU faculty member, he retired and moved to Tucson, Arizona. His interests lie in disease investigation, foreign animal disease, zoonotic diseases and plant toxicology. He has published two books on plant poisoning: A Guide to Plant Poisoning of Animals in North America and A Guide to Poisonous House and Garden Plants.

D. Phillip Sponenberg, DVM, PhD, is a professor of pathology and genetics at Virginia–Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine. He is the author of Equine Color Genetics, and his areas of research include genetics of domesticated animals, coatcolor heredity, conservation of rare livestock breeds, diagnostic pathology and reproductive pathology.

Dr. Bennett does state that the analysis might be right on, and I strongly think that is correct and will explain in more detail below.

Dr. Sponenberg is also correct about how the assignments are made and that sometimes an individual may show closer affinity to a related breed than to the one it actually comes from. This is often an issue because an individual horse only represents part of the diversity of its breed, so that a statistical analysis of its genotype may place it closer to a related breed.

In this case the three breeds that were returned as the best fits to this mustang were European Warmblood breeds. All three have Thoroughbred ancestors. An analysis of the Spring Creek Basin herd that

I did in 2007 showed that it was genetically most similar to what I call the Light Riding and Racing breeds, which include the Thoroughbred, Quarter Horse and all three of the Warmbloods that show up in this particular DNA ancestry analysis.

Of more than 200 wild-horse populations in the United States that I have tested over the years, only a handful show any genetic evidence of Spanish heritage. There is a suggestion that the Spring Creek Basin herd has some limited Spanish blood, but it is not likely to show up in the analysis of a single individual.

The horse in this case is probably not directly related to any of the three Warmblood breeds but is a mixed blood animal that has some Thoroughbred ancestors, which is what the DNA analysis shows. Do read the explanation of results at the above website. The lab fully admits that this testing does not always give a reliable result but as this case shows, it usually does give a reasonable one.

E. Gus Cothran, PhD

Professor Emeritus

Texas A&M University

College Station, Texas