Should We Agree to Disagree? An Evaluation of the Inter-Rater Reliability of Gait Quality Traits in Franches-Montagnes Stallions

Estimates of Genetic Parameters for Shape Space Data in Franches-Montagnes Horses

“…However, the distribution of the scores does not always follow a normal distribution, with the lowest scores being avoided, and the mean tending towards the perceived optimum (9) instead of the scale median (5) [ 19 ]. The same trend could be observed for gait quality traits [ 20 , 21 ]. Furthermore, FM experts scoring the same horses simultaneously, either in hand or on the treadmill over video recordings, had poor agreement (ICC < 0.50) for all scored gait quality traits [ 20 , 21 ].…”

“…The same trend could be observed for gait quality traits [ 20 , 21 ]. Furthermore, FM experts scoring the same horses simultaneously, either in hand or on the treadmill over video recordings, had poor agreement (ICC < 0.50) for all scored gait quality traits [ 20 , 21 ]. The heritability for conformation traits in the FM ranged from 0.09 (length of shoulder, hind limb muscle) to 0.79 (height at withers, measured) [ 22 ].…”

Gait quality scoring data of Franches-Montagnes stallions at walk and trot on a treadmill by experts of the breed and their reliability

“…In the FM breed, there are nine official experts of the breed, selected from a pool of regional experts, and elected for a period of four years by a delegation of breeders, for a maximum of three consecutive mandates. Six out of these nine official experts agreed to score the videos based on a previously published scoring scheme [1] , and were further designated with a letter from A to F. The experts were separated into three groups (three groups of two: A-B, C-D, E-F), each group presented with a randomised sequence of the 24 stallion videos (Table S1). To anticipate the challenge of scoring treadmill exercise videos, which none of the experts were familiar with, video sequences of three randomly selected stallions were put in the same order for all the experts before the official video scoring, during which the traits to evaluate were briefly discussed within each expert pair and the first author.…”

“…The textual definitions were first described in Gmel et al. [1] , during which the same traits were scored for the same 24 stallions during over-ground locomotion by seven experts of the breed [1] .…”

“…Textual definitions from Gmel et al. [1] Variable name Trait Definition Score 1 Score 9 Walk W_Coverage Ground coverage How far and how wide the forelimb travels. Related to the length of the stride.…”