Genetic analysis of geometric morphometric 3D visuals of French jumping horses

Table 3 Description of morphological traits that were favorably scored by judges according to estimates of genetic correlations between judges’ scores^a and summarized shapes

Score	Morphological trait favourably scored	Shapes involved
Neck	Long neck, short head	2, 3, 9
Body forehand	Straight shoulders, large elbow angle and long thoracic depth	10
Withers-back-loins	Short back, short withers, dipped line of the back	3
Body hindquarters	Long, narrow and flat croup and long gaskin length	8
Joints	Large joints, short stifle and long pasterns	3, 8
Stance of forelegs	Standing under for forelegs (side view) and narrow forelimbs (front view), long forelimbs and long and straight pasterns	2, 10
Stance of hindlegs	Wide base of hindleg, long hind pasterns and large joints	3, 8
Impression	Wither located behind the shoulder and uphill line of the back	2, 8
Chic	Small head	9

Summarized shapes were defined by the linear combination of 63 Procrustes coordinates using coefficients of the first ten eigenvectors of the genetic variance–covariance matrix of the coordinates. Procrustes coordinates and centroid size were obtained by morphometric analysis of major anatomical references from 3D views of the horse. Genetic variance–covariance matrix was estimated by pooling bivariate estimates from a sample of 2089 horses
^aJudges’ scores recorded on 28,412 horses

ISSN: 1297-9686