In this study we analysed the genetic contribution of the Arabian horse to the Lipizzan gene pool and its association with the overall type via shape regression analysis in 158 Lipizzan horses from the Austrian stud farm of Piber. Although crossbreeding with Arabian horses took place more than 100 years ago, we found a significant association of Lipizzan body shape (p < 0.003) with individual coefficients of Arabian gene proportion.

We analyzed the relationship between visual ratings of equine conformation and the underlying morphological horse shapes. The rater agreement of eight professional classifiers ranged from 0.30 to 0.55 (correlation). We present a methodological approach, where we associate the individual scores with the horse shapes derived from images, So we can test if the ratings correspond with the observed shape variation. In 58 % of the ratings no association between scores and the phenotypes was found.