The 2019 World Trotting Conference continued on Wednesday morning (May 29) with the third plenary session, which commenced with guest speaker Marie Rhodin, DVM.
Rhodin is an associate Professor in equine clinical bio-mechanics at the department of Clinical Sciences at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, and her research focuses on objective motion analysis for lameness detection with techniques such as high-speed cameras and inertial measure units. To implement objective measurements in the lameness exams she has looked into the effect of circular movement on movement symmetry in both sound and lame horses.
The second speaker was Sofia Mikko, PhD in Molecular Genetics, and a Researcher at the Department of Animal Breeding and Genetics. Her current research includes genetic background of equine traits such as performance in sport and racehorses, sarcoid tumors, skeletal atavism, and large-scale sequencing to better characterize the MHC (Major Histocompatibility Complex) in the horse.
The Breeding and Marketing Committees met for the second and final time of the conference. The Breeding Committee discussed issues such as stallion limits and genetic diversity, imports and exports, genomic research, embryo transfers, international shipping of semen and the recording of matings, microchipping and country of origin in the horse name. The Marketing and Business Development committee discussed social media, broadcast media in the digital world as well as additional revenue sources.
The recommendations of all the committees will be presented to the delegation on Friday at the closing ceremony.