Effect of horse sex status on British Eventing competition performance: an observational study between 1998 and 2016.

This research article investigated whether the gender of a horse affects its performance in British Eventing competitions, revealing that stallions and geldings generally outperformed mares except for in showjumping time penalties at the BE90 level.

Research Context and Approach

• This study was set out to analyze if a horse’s gender (mares, geldings, and stallions) impacts their scores in different eventing competitions organized by British Eventing from 1998 to 2016.
• Data from 681 horses, all born on or after 1994, and aged between 4 to 10 years, was collected and analyzed. The researchers ensured the data set contained equal numbers of each gender.
• The study examined performance across five levels of competition – BE90, BE100, Novice, Intermediate, and Advanced.

Key Metrics Investigated

• Scores from different phases of the competition, total overall scores, and the rank in competition for each horse were recorded to discover trends and differences between genders.
• ‘British Eventing (BE) points per competition’ was also examined both in terms of mean and median values for each gender.

Findings and Conclusions

• Substantial differences in performance between the different genders were found at all competition levels except for the Advanced level. Gender differences became apparent when comparing average phased scores, overall scores, rankings, and median ‘BE points per competition’ values.
• Stallions and geldings were found to have better performance outcomes than mares in general, although this trend was not consistent across all competition levels.
• The exception to this performance trend was in the BE90 level of competition, whereby mares outperformed geldings and stallions in the category of showjumping time penalties, earning significantly fewer penalties in this area.