The new methodoly of performance testing for young horses of sport breeds

Abstract

The authors proposed and approved a new method of performance test for evaluating of dressage and jumping qualities of young horses on the farm and at the inter-farm level to assess the performance inclinations of sports horses. Since the early 1980s, a performance test system has been proposed which included horse’s demonstrating under the saddle with measure of stride length at walk and trot, trot and canter style, as well as assessing jumping performance by free jumping. The changes in the economic conditions of most stud farm, the emergence of a shortage of personnel, as well as greater attention to the welfare of animals, the using of 2-year-old animals under the saddle has been practically stopped. This has confronted science and practice with the task of developing a new system for assessing young animals, which would allow them to reliably identify and evaluate their capabilities with less organizational costs. Since 2005, within the framework of cooperation with the German Hanoverian Society, first on the basis of the Stud farm Elitar, and since 2016 in the Riding Complex Maxima Park, the new type of evaluating of young horses began to be carried out with the involvement of foreign experts. This allowed authors to accumulate significant experience and propose our own methodology for testing young animals in movements and free jumps. The system was tested as part of an interbreed comparison at the exhibition “Equestrian Russia”, as well as in breeding farms in the Budennovskaya (OJSC Stud Farm named after the First Horse Army) and Hannover (LLC Private Stud Farm “Weedern”).For the convenience of assessing performance during grading, new indicators were introduced the dressage index and the jumping index with the determination of the weighting coefficients of individual characteristics. During testing of the methodology, certain patterns were discovered that allowed us to conclude that it is possible to determine specialization and subsequent assignment at 2-3 years of age. In particular, correlations were found (p<0,01) between scores for gaits in a complex of motor indicators: walk-trot 0.46, walk-gallop 0.51, trot-gallop 0.58, in a complex of jumping qualities between jumping style and assessment gallop 0.31, jumping potential and gallop 0.35, between technique and potential – 0.88. The analysis also showed the presence of significant differences between horses of different breeds. No significant differences between colts and fillies was identified.