In this thesis, we presented the development of methods for evaluating the pulling ability of horses and compared the methods and procedures used to evaluate the pulling ability of horses in selected breeding programmes of cold-blooded horse breeds. We found that the tests differ among breeding programmes and that they employ various combinations of assessments of obedience and harnessing, pulling a light load, and pulling a heavy or progressively increasing load. The evaluated traits are assessed predominantly subjectively through scoring, which is not optimal due to potential variations in assessment. Based on our findings, we proposed an improvement to the evaluation of pulling ability in the Slovenian Cold-Blooded Horse breed. We propose upgrading the existing test to include pulling a heavy or progressively increasing load and complementing the assessors subjective evaluations with objective measurements. This proposal should be further tested to determine whether a more objective test of pulling ability could provide more effective parameters for selection purposes, even in a small horse population. If this hypothesis were confirmed, such an update could be of interest for broader application or for the improvement of breeding programmes for horse populations in which harness-related traits are included among the breeding objectives.
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