The Equine Genetics Research Centre was established by Racing Australia to provide parentage verification services to the Australian Stud Book (ASB). Parentage verification is achieved by testing specific DNA markers in the foal and comparing them to the same DNA markers in the parents. The ASB holds a database of DNA markers for all registered Thoroughbreds tested in Australia since 2002.
Whilst most equine genetic testing is performed using DNA extracted from the cell at the origin of a pulled hair, DNA can be extracted from many tissue types. The EGRC is able to extract DNA from various forensic samples, particularly if they have obvious traces of blood or saliva on their surfaces. These may include syringes, needles, cotton swabs and oral paste tubes. If enough DNA is present in the sample, the DNA marker profile can be derived and used to identify the horse from which the sample was taken. To do this, written permission is obtained from the ASB, before a search of their DNA database to identify the individual horse that the sample came from. So far, 22 individual horses have been identified from the database which contains the profiles of more than 400,000 Thoroughbreds. Each profile has been unique. There have been two instances where the database search failed to identify a horse. The first was a Thoroughbred foal that had not yet been registered, and the second was a Standardbred which did not have a profile in the database.
In this presentation, we will discuss three cases where DNA profiling has positively identified a horse that had been administered EPO; two horses that were injected with the same syringe; and a horse that had been stolen. We will also describe the capabilities and limitations of using DNA profiling in forensic cases.