[ad_1] Is it the right horse for the job? Temple Grandin suggests looking into its genes to find out. Grandin, Colorado State University’s https://agsci.colostate.edu/ag_stories/temple-grandin/, will be teaming up with a researcher from the University of New England in Australia, the two schools announced. Grandin and UNE Professor of Animal Behavior Paul McGreevy will examine the
Grandin and UNE Professor of Animal Behavior Paul McGreevy will examine the genetics of quarter horses and whether genes can predict a horse’s temperament. With that knowledge, breeders can better match the animal with the work it is asked to do.
Temple Grandin gets a tour of the new Temple Grandin Equine Center in the Vida building at The CSU Spur campus on Jan. 7, 2022.
The Quarter Horse’s extraordinary versatility is a key to the study, as stated in the schools’ press release. The American Quarter Horse Association (AQHA) has 280,000 paying members split across six disciplines: cutting, halter, racing, reining, Western Pleasure and working cow.
“This project will give Quarter Horse breeders – and horse breeders everywhere – a proven path to improving horse performance while advancing horse welfare and reducing behavioral issues,” Grandin stated in the press release.
McGreevy will lead the study. He developed the project after receiving a Fulbright Commission grant. McGreevy met Grandin at CSU in 2022.
University of New England (Australia) Professor of Animal Behavior Paul McGreevy.
University of University of New England (Australia)
In the announcement, McGreevy stated that he hopes that the project will address the problem known as “behavioral wastage,” an issue that arises when an owner doesn’t recognize a horse is ill-suited to a chosen role until it is well into training. This is essentially trying to “jam square pegs into round holes” and can lead to stress and injuries to both animal and person, per McGreevy.
Horse accidents kill on average 20 Australians each year, he added.
“With this project, we are using a recent innovation in collecting and analyzing equine behavior to understand and celebrate the genetic differences that optimize the matching of horses for courses,” McGreevy said.
That innovation is the Equine Behavior Assessment and Research Questionnaire (E-BARQ). The system, developed from a prior canine program called C-BARQ, enables researchers to collect detailed owner-reported data on observed horse behaviors. Researchers then work on eliminating subjective judgements about what those behaviors represent.
E-BARG already possesses data on 5,000 horses and has “objectively shown that the behavior of horses changes as they age; that certain behaviors in-hand predict dangerous behaviors in-saddle; even that a horse may behave differently depending on whether it is being handled by a man or a woman,” as stated in the press release.
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