Pedigree
The family tree: parents, grandparents and earlier ancestors. A pedigree shows relationships, but it does not by itself tell you whether a mating is genetically wise.
Horse pedigree · COI · kinship
A pedigree tells you who is there. Relationship analysis helps explain what that means.
Horse breeders often see COI presented as a single percentage. Conservation breeding needs a wider view: the individual horse, the proposed mate, repeated ancestors, family representation and which genetic options may be disappearing.COI
Coefficient of inbreeding estimates the probability that two copies of a gene at a locus are identical by descent because the parents share ancestors.
Kinship
Kinship asks how closely two horses are related. For conservation breeding, comparing the pair can be more useful than looking only at either horse's individual COI.
Representation
A rare family may deserve attention even when another mating has a slightly lower COI. Conservation decisions balance relationship, family representation, fertility, age, health and practical breeding options.
Why COI can rise
The same ancestor can enter a pedigree through more than one path.
When sire and dam share ancestors, descendants can inherit matching copies of DNA that trace back to those shared ancestors. The more closely and repeatedly the parents are related, the more likely that becomes.
COI is therefore a relationship signal—not a score for whether a horse is “good” or “bad.” It should be interpreted alongside the depth and completeness of the pedigree.
Why conservation changes the question
The lowest possible COI is not automatically the only goal.
A threatened population can lose diversity by repeatedly using the same popular families, even when individual matings look acceptable. A less common maternal or paternal family may carry representation that becomes important to preserve.
That is why Conservation Legacy connects pedigree analysis with preservation-priority signals rather than treating one number as the whole breeding decision.
Use the number responsiblyCOI depends on the pedigree data available.
Missing ancestors, duplicate horse identities or incomplete registry history can change a calculated result. Our Bloodlines tools keep uncertainty visible instead of presenting incomplete data as perfect certainty.
Try it with real records