Estimation of Genetic Trend on Racing Time of Thoroughbred Racehorses

Abstract

The objective of this study was to estimate genetic trend on racing time of Thoroughbred racehorses in Korea, using a total of 209,725 racing records of 9,934 racehorses collection from January, 1990 to December, 2006. Phenotypic trends for all distances were negative at a rate of 0.148, 0.137, 0.137 and 0.139 second per race year for distances of 1,000m, 1,400m less than, 1,700m more than and overall dataset, respectively. Environmental trends were similar to phenotypic ones in all distances and trends in permanent environmental and jockey effects by race year were not found. Average genetic improvements for racing time were 0.037 and 0.030 second per race year at the 1,000m and overall dataset, respectively, which is low. But Genetic trends were decreased consistently. There is need to establish the genetic improvement program for quality of racehorses.