Cremello TB Electrum

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@ Penniless,

would you mind sending a picture of your colorful mare, being into horse color genetics since more than 30 years I would love to see her.

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Will try and get a photo of her once we've managed to get the mud off of her!

Apart from the white paint-pot splashes on her side and under her belly, hence her stable name "Splodge", during the year the colouring changes from very bright white down to a duller grey colour (which is what it is at the moment) BUT in the height of summer - she also gets black stripes all over her body (seriously) and even our stud vet then calls her "Tiger". We are being totally serious and honest about this and in all honesty, everyone who comes out and sees her in summer always make a remark about her. All this colouring is only on one side of her body, so if anybody looks over the door, all they see is an ordinary chesnut coloured horse until we turn her round and say "Meet Splodge" and then we get the comments.

Will try and get a photo though - generally we seem to take them from the "normal" side. If you are genuinely interested, we'll take them over a period of 12 months and you will then see the change of colouring in her and maybe with your experience of colour genetics, you can let us know how and where she got all this from. This years foal was from a bay stallion and the mare is in foal to another bay, so will be interesting to see what that foal turns out like.
 
Fascinating thread; one thing I would be interested to know is whether the mutation that produces creme is a simple thing that, even if it had died out in the thoroughbred, could happen again amongst the thousands of horses bred. I'm really guessing here, but even if the necessary changes were more complicated; say more than one change was necessary to convert a gene for non-dilute to dilute, the breed as a whole might be primed for this by its descent from stock which almost certainly did have a propensity towards dilute colours; look at the Akhal Teke for example- this was surely one of the root stocks of the TB? Individual TBs might be almost there, just wanting one little genetic tweak to produce these colours.

Having said that, breeding was a bit hittymissy I think up to the advent of blood-typing; my own mare has "Nasrullah or Fairhaven" at one point in her pedigree. The offspring was called Fairgirl so they must have decided it was Fairhaven. However, if Nasrullah was involved, this was probably the standard of reliability at the UPPER end of the market...

I don't think the Jersey Act is really proof that the Americans were ever more lax about breeding than us Brits, though; the Jersey Act was protectionism, pure & simple, to prevent our market being flooded by cheap, good American horses when the American market collapsed. Those same horses had been good enough for us prior to this and were already in our own pedigrees...

Just out of interest, what colour would you call this? (Advert presently to the right of my screen)
http://www.oodle.co.uk/r_wgxx_/109657976...PNGs8yMf1hSzDlg,,
 
Re the horse jumping in the picture I would need a closer picture of that horse and possibly series of pictures and it’s parentage to hazard a guess, could well be a bay from the picture it looks like tan in the soft parts so it could be a black and tan, or perhaps linked to Pangare that you find in Exmoor ponies, but it is a contention that Pangere actually exists as a gene on it’s own at the moment. Or it could be a dark dun like the one in my signature below.

I would never say never with genes as Mutations are an integral part of survival and evolution of species so yes a repeat of a mutation could happen independently, but it would not be influenced by the fact that a breed had had a dominant gene but it was lost, it is probably around the likelihood that a mutation would result in a bay Suffolk punch. Had Cream been a recessive gene then no problem it could pop up anywhere, like in a very rare chestnut Cleveland Bay. But it is a dominant. The key would be in specialist DNA testing which would differentiate as to weather it was a natural mutation or an introduction from another source. However these horses have been verified and recognised, but I will be interested to see how they perform for it is fundamentally a performance based breed.

Parentage is always a problem in any breed pre DNA testing, but with the TB it is less of a worry as out crossing does not advance the racing abilities at the higher levels, the TB has evolved beyond the need for outside blood and since it is totally performance driven at higher levels it is not in anyone’s interest to introduce anything other than TB (Snr Tesio gives an example of this in his book), so whilst a sire might be in question it will still be a TB. This is why I argue that the cream gene was lost from racing stock. Not only that but had there been a palomino or golden buckskin racehorse in those intervening years, which would have been likely had the gene survived it would have been reported. Look at Birdcatcher, a chestnut with white ticking commented on extensively and now these markings are referred to as “Birdcatcher ticks” (probably Rabicano gene) he also had white splodges in his coat referred to as “Birdcatcher Spots”. Bend Or with dark smut marks over his body, now often called “Bend Or” spots. Then there is the Tetrach just a grey who coloured out peculiarly, but extensively referred to and wondered at, yet no mention of a Palomino or golden buckskin.

A good example of a mutation was NZ TB Catch a Bird, believed to be a stress related mutation that resulted in a kind of positive of a brindle, he had white where a brindle would have black. It is interesting that when bred on he never reproduced his own colouring, yet did go on to produce a few true roans!

Uncorroborated reports on some of the Hancock Line QH’s suggest that a rare mutation has resulted in 100% roan foals from a couple of stallions, however there are still a significant numbers of non and late pregnancies associated with them, the very factors that suggest homozygous roan is not viable? Until this is studied however it remains anecdotal.

There is a point at which sabino body patches mutates into splash white and apparently a breeder of ponies in the UK has some very valuable clues as to how this happens yet sadly is not apparently willing to share the knowledge!

Thanks for the quotes Firm they are very helpful in defining thinking in that time and discovering what happened to TB's that did not perform, there was no real outlet for sub standard performers, ordinary people needed tough working horses and hunters were big in those days, there was no large sport horse market to breed from them or use them so it was race or bullet so probably improved the breed harsh though it is.
 
Re Odd coloured Racehorses it’s the Sabino gene at work, if a blaze points at an eye or covers it, it can change it to blue or wall.

Sabino will give you white legs as the white modifying genes amplify in individuals and this will also give you white patches on the body. It is not the same gene “Tobiano” that gives you your standard British spotting pattern referred to mostly as piebald/skewbald though thought to be dominant sabino comes in many forms and it is dependant on white modifiers as to if it shows or hides then crops out suddenly from two conservatively marked parents!

I've been watching this closely and I think that some coolmore stock particularly some of the Storm Cat's with a lot of sabino are very close to cropping out, so we may well see a "coloured" at the highest of levels soon. What will be fascinating is what will happen when two of these are bred together, will we see a mutation to splash white or overo in the TB!
 
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