Preliminary investigation into equine coat colour bias within the British Breeding Futurityyoung horse evaluations

摘要

Implications ‘Blocked Coloured’ (BC) and ‘Spotted’ (Sp) horses had significantly lower Premium Scores than ‘Solid’ (S)coloured horses, suggesting a negative horse coat colour bias influencing potential performance horse evaluations.Introduction The British Equestrian Federation (BEF), under the auspices of the British Breeding Futurity, annuallyevaluates >700 young horses (Foals-3yo) for their potential as future performance horses. Individual horses are evaluatedon a discipline basis (Dressage, Show Jumping, Eventing or Endurance). Feedback from participants has suggested that abias in the evaluations according to the horses coat colour exists. Since the premium scores awarded at the Futurity caninfluence the ‘worth’ of a horse, any bias in scoring could have financial implications for the British equine sector. Judgingbias according to athletes’ uniform colour has been found in several studies e.g. that of Hageman et al. (2008) and changing‘fashions’ in horse coat colour is apparent through history as described by Linderholm and Larson (2013). However, noprior research has investigated judging bias according to the coat colour of the horse. The aim of this preliminary researchproject was to (1) investigate whether equine coat colour bias exists within the Futurity evaluations and (2) evaluate inwhich discipline or part of the evaluation process this occurs.