A new study has shown that parental age can be a determining factor in which a horse wins a race, according to Mirage News.
Researchers from the University of Exeter, UK, collected data from the more than 900 000 race performances of over 100 000 horses over 25 years.
Using this data, and the knowledge they had of the ages of the horses' dams and sires, the researchers showed that the speed of Thoroughbred horses declined as parental age at conception increased.
The study, published in the journal Royal Society Open Science, indicated that this research was crucial for optimising Thoroughbred breeding.
In terms of the impact of maternal age on speed, the study found that with each additional year of age at conception, the offspring's speed decreased by 0,017 yards per second. According…
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Farmer's Weekly (Digital) - 1 Issue, 21 October 2022