Does Color Affect Performance in Thoroughbred Horses?
January 6th, 2005by Grace Murphy
Grace Murphy
Editor’s note: Grace Murphy is the 11-year-old daughter of former Major League baseball pitcher Rob Murphy, who is the master of M375 Thoroughbreds.
Studying genetics in her sixth grade science class at St. Michael’s Independent School in Stuart, Florida, prompted Grace to research Thoroughbred color and performance.
In the course of developing her award-winning science project, Grace discovers an interesting fact about Cozzene’s offspring.
Of the four offspring of the Thoroughbred sire, Cozzene, that my dad owned, I noticed that the non-grey horses were just average runners, but the grey was an excellent runner. My hypothesis was that Cozzene’s grey or roan horses will be his better runners.
Utilizing the full race records of every offspring of Cozzene, who has had 688 foals born since 1987, I analyzed their performance on the racetrack in conjunction with their color. Using data acquired from Bloodstock Research Information Systems in Kentucky, I recorded the color, race record, and earnings of each of Cozzene’s foals born from 1987-2001.
In analyzing the race records of Cozzene’s foals, I found that the results were very similar in the percentage of runners and winners. However, the race records of the higher level horses began to differ greatly. In fact, the highest level (Grade 1) had grey out-ranking non-gray ten to one, proving my hypothesis about Cozzene’s foals was correct.
