About the Authors

Susan P. Knowler

s.knowler@surrey.ac.uk

Affiliation School of Veterinary Medicine, Faculty of Health & Medical Sciences, University of Surrey, Guildford, Surrey, United Kingdom

Anna-Mariam Kiviranta

Affiliation Department of Equine and Small Animal Medicine, 00014 University of Helsinki, Finland

Angus K. McFadyen

Affiliation akm-stats, Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom

Tarja S. Jokinen

Affiliation Department of Equine and Small Animal Medicine, 00014 University of Helsinki, Finland

Roberto M. La Ragione

Affiliation School of Veterinary Medicine, Faculty of Health & Medical Sciences, University of Surrey, Guildford, Surrey, United Kingdom

Clare Rusbridge

Affiliations School of Veterinary Medicine, Faculty of Health & Medical Sciences, University of Surrey, Guildford, Surrey, United Kingdom, Fitzpatrick Referrals, Godalming, Surrey, United Kingdom

Competing Interests

SPK is a post graduate research student at the University of Surrey where CR and RMLaR are employed. CR is also are employed by Fitzpatrick Referrals Ltd, Surrey. A-MK and TJ are employed by the University of Helsinki. AKM is an independent statistical consultant operating professionally as a sole trader under the company name of akmstats and did not receive any salary or other remittance for his contribution in this investigation. Fitzpatrick Referrals Ltd and the Universites of Surrey and Finland did not play a role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript and only provided financial support in the form of authors' salaries and/or research materials. None of the authors have personal or financial relationships with other people or organizations that might inappropriately influence or bias the content of the paper. There are no patents, products in development, or marketed products to declare. This does not alter the authors' adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization: SPK. Formal analysis: SPK AKM. Funding acquisition: CR TSJ A-MK. Investigation: SPK A-MK CR TSJ. Methodology: SPK CR AKM. Project administration: CR. Resources: A-MK TSJ CR AKM. Supervision: CR RMLR AKM. Visualization: SPK. Writing – original draft: SPK. Writing – review & editing: SPK A-MK TSJ AKM CR RMLR.