Equine Genetics and Breeding for Athletic Potential

This introduces genetic principles and then uses this to understand how selective breeding programmes are adopted to improve performance or health in the horse.

  1. Apply the concepts of Mendelian Genetics to discuss examples of breeding for coat colour or to control deleterious genes in the horse.
  2. Understand how principles of population genetics can be applied to breeding strategies in the Equine Industry.
  3. Outline how errors in meiosis can result in chromosome abnormalities and be able to give examples of genetic errors in the horse.
  4. Evaluate the potential benefits of genetic engineering techniques in the equine industry.
  5. Appraise current and future technologies in equine reproduction including artificial insemination, embryo transfer and cloning.