Study the effect of some factors on the conformation of Iraqi Arabian horses

Abstract EN

This study is conducted on (55) Iraqi Arabian horses with different sub breeds (AL-Muanigi, AL-Hamdani, AL-Kuhailan and AL-Saklawi), the ages ranged 12-240 months for both sexes (males and females) and with different colures (White, Black, Red, Brown).

The current study aims to estimate the effect of sub breed of horses sex, age and color on different body measurements of wither height (WH),Croup height (CH),Body length (BL),Chest girth (CG), abdomen girth (AG), length of 3rd metacarpal bone (L3rdMB), Circumference of 3rd metacarpal bone (C3rdMB), length of backline (LBL), head length (HL), length of hind lamb (LHL), and arm length (AL) and hand length (HL), respectively indices for backline, chest girth, body shape, body length and body height.

The results can be summarized as follows : The overall means ± their standard errors of body measurement of Iraqi horses are 145.434 ± 1.963, 155.814 ± 2.688, 155.814 ± 2.688, 165.354 ± 2.932, 165.332 ± 3.467, 30.779 ± 3.406, 18.144 ± 0.310, 76.140 ± 1.212, 64.614 ± 0.493, 136.223 ± 1.517, 40.227 ± 0.859 and 41.179 ± 1.006 can for WH, CH, BL, CG, AG, L3rdMB, c3rdMB, LBL, HL, LHL, AL and HAL respectively.

Generally, there are significant (P < 0.05) increases in the body measurements with age progress ; Mares have recorded arithmetically superiority in all measurements except (AG) and (LBL) as compared to stallions.

AL-muanigi and AL-Saklawi sub breeds in equine arithmetic and significant (P < 0.05) superiority in most measurements as compared with AL-Hamdani and AL-Kuhailan Sub-breeds.

The results show that overall means of line, chest girth, body shape, body length and wither height are 52.411 ± 0.826, 113.777 ± 1.549, 107.212 ± 1.521, 205.051 ± 3.247 and 99.736 ± 0.648 % respectively.

The results explain that color of horses affects body shape also the high value for body shape index (107.212 %) and body length index (205.051 %) refer to the ability to burden the weight of the horseman for longer distances and also the shortness of the back line 76.140 cm.

comparison with body length (155.814 cm) explain that Iraqi Arabian horse have ability in races high lyses for long distances.

Highly significant (P < 0.01) correlation coefficients among most different Body measurements are found (table-3).