Phenotypic associations between young horse assessments and orthopaedic diagnoses in insured Swedish Warmblood horses.

Authors

Sandra Bonow, Elin Hernlund, Susanne Eriksson, Erling Strandberg, Åsa Gelinder Viklund

Published in

Equine veterinary journal. Sep 23, 2026. Epub Sep 23, 2026.

Abstract

Lameness is the most common health problem in riding horses, and insurance data have previously been used to investigate the prevalence of orthopaedic diagnoses in Swedish Warmblood (SWB) horses. Young horse performance testing is an important part of the SWB breeding programme and contributes data to the genetic evaluation. Assessed traits from these tests have been shown to be useful indicator traits of performance in show jumping and dressage, but their associations with orthopaedic health have not previously been investigated.
To study the associations between assessed traits from young horse tests and orthopaedic diagnoses, and to investigate if such traits can be useful as indicator traits of future orthopaedic health in SWB horses.
Retrospective cohort study.
Insurance data from 5991 SWB horses between 4 and 14 years, born in 2010-2020, and assessed at a young horse test were included. Horses were classified as jumping or dressage horses. The data were analysed with survival analysis, using the number of days from birth to first orthopaedic diagnosis as time scale.
High scores for the numerically scored trait 'trot at hand' were significantly associated with less risk of orthopaedic diagnoses for both jumping and dressage horses (p < 0.05 and p < 0.001, respectively). Also, horses with greater height at the withers had a significantly higher risk of having orthopaedic diagnoses. Eleven of 48 linearly scored traits were significantly associated with orthopaedic diagnoses.
The insurance data may have uncertainties and will not fully describe the prevalence of orthopaedic diagnoses in the SWB population. Additionally, pre-selection of horses attending young horse tests may introduce some bias in the data on assessed traits.
Relatively few traits were significantly associated with orthopaedic diagnoses, suggesting that traits currently assessed at young horse tests have limited value as indicator traits of orthopaedic health.

PMID:
42776085
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 23 Sep 2026.

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