Where does an Appaloosa get its spots? What makes one horse more naturally suited for Western pleasure than dressage? Why do some horses get laminitis, and others don’t? The short answer we all know is, “It’s in the genes.” Accurate, but abstract.

The Horse Genome Project is finally able to answer some of these mystifying questions. For the past four years, the participants in this multinational project have been unraveling the equine genetic code. Led by Claire Wade, BSc, PhD, a senior research scientist at the Broad Institute, a part of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, this research team has been bringing that age-old term “in the genes” down to an exact science.

 

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