ArticleEquine veterinary journal2025
Heritability of sudden cardiac death in Thoroughbred racehorses.
Article in Equine veterinary journal, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Pathology of sudden death in racehorses: a review.Journal of veterinary diagnostic investigation : official publication of the American Association of Veterinary Laboratory Diagnosticians, Inc · 2026Article
- Heritability of sudden cardiac death in Thoroughbred racehorses.Equine veterinary journal · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundSudden cardiac death (SCD) is an important cause of exercise-associated fatalities in Thoroughbred racehorses. Equine deaths share similarities with fatalities in human athletes that result from inherited cardiac disease. Whilst genetic causes have been postulated in horses, these have not been confirmed and heritability of SCD has not previously been estimated in Thoroughbred racehorses.
objectivesTo determine the heritability of SCD in a sample population of Thoroughbred racehorses. STUDY
designRetrospective case-control study.
methodsSteward and post-mortem reports of Thoroughbred racehorses in Australia between 2007 and 2020 were reviewed to identify horses with SCD. Control horses were randomly selected from races in which SCD occurred or from races on the date of the case fatality. A five-generation integrated pedigree chart was collected for each horse. Estimates of heritability were obtained using an animal model in the ASReml-R program with variance components estimated assuming SCD was normally distributed, and on the logit transformed scale. Inbreeding coefficients were calculated and the risk of producing SCD-affected progeny was calculated for stallions that sired ≥5 individuals in the case-control population.
resultsNinety-three horses with SCD and 465 control horses were identified. Heritability on the underlying scale was 0.15 ± 0.09 (logit animal) and 0.24 ± 0.12 (normal animal). Inbreeding coefficients were not significantly different between groups. Of the 16 first generation sires that appeared ≥5 times in the case-control data set, two sires more frequently produced affected progeny (OR 7.95-10.41). MAIN LIMITATIONS: Challenges in definitively confirming SCD may lead to misclassification of some cases. Some control horses may have not been exposed to environmental influences of SCD. Case numbers are low and the studied population may not represent the entire Thoroughbred genetic pool.
conclusionThe heritability of SCD in this population was relatively low. However, individual stallions appear more likely to produce affected progeny. Further studies are required to understand the genetic and environmental influences that contribute to disease expression.
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