Morphological description of the Lipizzan horse population

Morphological measurements of Lipizzan horses from state-owned studs in sev en countries in Central and South-east Europe (Austria, Croatia, Hungary, I taly, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia) were recorded to characterise the bas e population of Lipizzan horse breeding. A total of 37 distance and angular measures were taken from 368 breeding mares and 145 stallions from eight s tuds tone stud from each country with the exception of Romania, where horse s were measured at two studs), Significant differences between studs were f ound for most of the traits (34 of 37 for mares, 19 of 37 for stallions), R epeatabilities of measurements (based on two repetitions in 100 horses) var ied from 0.23 to 0.95. Some of the measurements most frequently taken in ho rse breeding showed high repeatabilities (0.95 for height at withers and ca nnon bone circumference), but chest girth showed a rather low repeatability of 0.45. Heritabilites of the traits Varied from 0.00 to 0.55. Estimates w ere comparable to literature results but due to the small data set (only th e 368 mares were used for analysis) they were partly inconsistent. Multivar iate analyses were applied separately to mares and stallions. Length of nec k, cannon bone circumference, and width of thorax were the most important t raits for discriminating studs for mares: width of thurls, chest circumfere nce, and width of hips were important for stallions. Mahalanobis distances based on all 37 measurements were significant for pairwise comparison of al l studs. An analysis of the differences of sire lines showed no significanc e. The results reflect at least partially different breeding goals. (C) 200 1 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.