Foal weight at birth is an indicator of health, so it is of interest to breeders of thoroughbred horses. Is foal weight related to the weight of the mare (mother)?

The accompanying data are from the paper “Suckling Behaviour Does Not Measure Milk Intake in Horses”

(Animal Behaviour [1999]: 673–678):

Observation Mare Weight

(x, in kg)

Foal weight

(y, in kg)

1 556 129 2 638 119 3 588 132 4 550 123.5 5 580 112 6 642 113.5 7 568 95 8 642 104 9 556 104 10 616 93.5 11 549 108.5 12 504 95 13 515 117.5 14 551 128 15 594 127.5 The correlation coefficient for these data is 0.001. Construct a scatterplot of these data and then write a few sentences describing the relationship between mare weight and foal weight that refer both to the value of the correlation coefficient and the scatterplot.