Effect of Gender on Meat Quality from Adult Obsolescent Horses

SIMPLE SUMMARY: Horses have played an important role for humans through history, being used as a transport, draught power in the past, and they continue to be used for leisure activities, recreation, and other tasks, including horse milk and meat consumption. Different contradictory cultural meanings are associated with horse meat consumption, and horse meat is a taboo in some countries but remains popular in others. There are also efforts to promote horse meat consumption as a healthy and nutritious food. As only a small part of raised horses is destined for meat production, in Europe most of horses are usually not slaughtered but are put down in other ways and often destroyed. Therefore, the objective of this study was to assess the influence of gender, age, and carcass weight on the properties of meat from adult obsolescent horses. Age did not show any effect on meat properties, whereas gender appeared to affect intramuscular fat, cholesterol content, color parameters, fatty acid composition, and toughness. Despite the differences in meat quality parameters between the genders, horse meat from all groups demonstrated a good quality, favorable fatty acid composition, and lipid indices in relation to healthy nutrition. ABSTRACT: The objective of the study was to assess the influence of gender, age, and carcass weight on the properties of meat from adult horses slaughtered in Lithuania. M. pectoralis profundus of twenty-six obsolescent horses from 3 to 21 years of age were used in the experiment. Gender appeared to affect the horse meat properties. Stallions demonstrated (p < 0.01 and p < 0.05, respectively) lower content of dry matter and also considerably lower (p < 0.001 and p < 0.01) intramuscular fat content compared with mares and geldings and higher (p < 0.01) cholesterol content compared with mares. The meat of stallions showed the highest pH; however, a significant (p < 0.01) difference was obtained only in comparison with mares. Meat lightness (L*) and yellowness (b*) of stallions were lower (p < 0.05) compared with geldings. Meat toughness of stallions was also lower (p < 0.01) than the meat of mares and geldings. The highest (p < 0.05 and p < 0.01, respectively) proportion of total polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA), higher (p < 0.05) and more favorable PUFA/SFA ratio, and also the highest (p < 0.05) but least favorable n-6/n-3 PUFA ratio, were detected in the muscles of stallions compared with mares and geldings. The differences in horse ages did not exhibit any effect on the properties of M. pectoralis profundus. Despite the age differences at the decline of horse life, the properties of the horse meat exhibited good quality and showed that horse meat is potentially highly beneficial to human health.