Equinome, a biotech company based at
University College Dublin, has
identified a "speed gene" in Thoroughbred horses. The gene may help identify the distance over which a horse is ideally suited to race. It is the first time that a gene variant has been linked to an athletic phenotype in racehorses.
Emmeline W. Hill, Jingjing Gu, Suzanne S. Eivers, Rita G. Fonseca, Beatrice A. McGivney, Preethi Govindarajan, Nick Orr, Lisa M. Katz, David MacHugh. A Sequence Polymorphism in MSTN Predicts Sprinting Ability and Racing Stamina in Thoroughbred Horses. PLoS ONE, 2010; 5 (1): e8645 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0008645
