So you think your horse is Bay?

[KarynK]

After all the discussions on is it a buckskin or not here’s one on a bit more basic level

Oh dear my horses are becoming famous for disproving base coat colour genetic theories but this is by far the most startling so far!

My sister is running her second survey into base coat colours in Appaloosas, and with them you sometimes can’t tell what it is! In this survey we are breaking new ground by using the hot off the press “t” gene test for black and tan (seal brown), this was theorised as a gene with similar effect as seen in dogs like rottweilers, i.e. largely black with tan muzzle and soft parts. My horses were the first in the UK to be DNA tested for this and the results came in today.

This is my TB, classic textbook Bay with sooty and dapples? Not likely HOMOZYGOUS “At At” she is a Black and Tan NOT a Bay!!!

Oh and her son? Him pictured below, theorised to be a dark "red" dun, tested originally as AA Ee a Bay/brown (Homozygous for Bay Brown carrying chestnut) with the additional test he has 1 At from Mum and A (bay) from dad, which might explain why he is not a yellow dun?

So loads of theorising to do now. If anyone out there would like to see what they have PM me and I'll try to get the survey special offer extended to other breeds as this one has me hooked and turns all the textbooks upside down!

The survey in the appaloosa is looking for possible reasons for the non coloured ones in the base coat colour genetics, but is throwing up all sorts of other interesting factors.

 

[Thistle]

I have a bright red bay with a distinctive darker brown dorsal stripe. She is out of a chestnut Newfie by an unknown sire (believed to be a Sec D who jumped in one night, the foal was a surprise)

 

[KarynK]

We just know so little about horse coat colour genetics and it's quite exciting, you look at dog genetics books and there are loads on coat colour and pigment but with horses no one has bothered. I think they now need to establish what determins coat shades and we'd know more but this is a start.

Wonder what weatherbys would say if I asked them to change her papers to Black and Tan!!! Her mum was a very strong ginger chestnut, dad Belfort was a grey but had dark dapples and dorsal line before going white, but Grandad Tyrant does look Black and Tan. I wonder if this gene is prominent in TB's or everything?

 

[LindaW]

Wonder what my young mare is. She looks bay (like yours) her dam was what I'd describe as brown (black body, brown muzzle and soft bits) sire looks bay, She could be B&T with a recessive chestnut, or B&T with Bay, or all B&T!!! Or bay obviously

I'd like to find out what gives the metallic sheen to my chestnut - he's like molten gold. When you look at his coat in the sunlight, instead of there being an iridescence like you see in most coats, there is just gold (he's a russian breed, an has the look of the Akhal Teke sheen)

 

[Bounty]

How exciting!
I was reading the other day about 'Seal' coloured greyhounds and thinking that it would be the perfect way to describe my mare's colouring.

This is her...

She'd just come out of a long stint of box rest,so you can't see any sun bleaching, but if the sun so much as shone on her for 1 day the ends of her coat would turn a reddish colour.

What do you reckon!?

 

[rabatsa]

The best way to describe my mares colouring is like an over ripe banana, with dapples. Mum is a definate buckskin having produced buckskin and palomino foals as well as two like mine. I never saw dad but according to the breeder he was the same colour as my beastie, and he threw palomino, chestnut and mine. Put to a bay tobiano my mare has thrown a solid bay. So not too sure what I have actually got.

 

[KarynK]

Yes been looking at her in a new light and I think the clues may well be in that as well as having black points she has black all along the spine, so the black on her forms a frame around the brown which comes from the soft parts. When she was first tested in 2004 they could not split A and she tested Ee (black carrying chestnut ) and AA, so I was blissfully unaware!

So maybe thinking on the hoof here At At allows this full extension of the brown leaving the black as a frame and this example

http://www.winnerscircleranch.com/sitebuilder/images/99Goldpro-460x324.jpg

Is perhaps explained by At a ( a black carrier)?
I had her son tested and he is At A , bay carrying black and tan as bay is dominant, but unfortunately he is a dun so I cant see what he would be!! Waiting for more test results to come through as it will be really interesting to see exactly what a bay is!!

Unfortunately all I have left to test are Chestnuts, but that might give a clue if t affects chestnut coat shades?

I know in the development of the test they used some American Exmoors, so now you have to ask does pangere, (mealy muzzle) actually exist on its own, is this a sign of seal brown??

The plot thickens and I love all this stuff!

Re the iridescent shine, I had a TB x Connemara years ago that was a yellow buckskin and in the summer he had a lovely golden shine like that in parts of his coat. I haven’t found anything on inheritance of this in the Akhal Teke but it is supposed to be due to the structure of the hair itself that makes it act like a light pipe. There is a lot of speculation that this breed is a forerunner of the Arab and the TB so maybe some of this still exists in a mutated form? Interestingly there is no dun in the breed. Tough little beggers though and being used by the Nez Perce in America to re establish their breed.

Bounty I think yours would be a real candidate and it would be interesting to see if she was At a as she is really similar to the link above, probably with a bit more brown. In winter my mare above is so dark she is almost black, but bleeching may have an effect in summer as well.


Rabasta - You might well have a dark buckskin there, was over the new forest the other day buying cheap foal slips! I saw what I thought was another double dilute foal in a group, so I took the camera, some twit in a house was feeding them grass cuttings!! Moron, but anyway I took a load of pictures as some of them looked very suspicious, the mother of the foal (palomino) was what looked like brown but with some dun features but others in the group were clear yellow buckskins, it's very hard to tell on dark coats without testing them.

 

[Bounty]

Karen - Cybele's passport says she is brown on the cover, but black on the inside ID sheet. The only stumbling block with testing my mare is that she was PTS last year...

 

[CrazyMare]

[ QUOTE ]
Karen - Cybele's passport says she is brown on the cover, but black on the inside ID sheet. The only stumbling block with testing my mare is that she was PTS last year...

[/ QUOTE ]

I ride one that says he is a bay colt, with two different names inside, and hes a grey gelding....

Who knows what colour my filly wll be, shes got black looking ears, mealy muzzle, bay body, is light on the inside of her legs with brown/black knees/hocks....

 

[KarynK]

So sorry to hear that, know how you feel lost my old cleveland bay cross last month, probably would have been tempted to see what he was as he was a totally different colour to the mare in his hey day, bless him, the real tear jerker was that the others didn't notice he had gone.

Have come across some strange papers before, especially in appaloosas as the spots move and the coat fades! Trouble is they record a lot of colours as foals and of course they go grey or change!! It's like grey roans in TB's, they are blo*dy grey and only stay "roan" for a year or two at most before going white! They should go over to photos verified by the vet and forget the silhouette stuff.

 

[Damien]

Have been asked to ask by other colour genetic enthusiasts where the testing is being carried out and is the tan being reffered to panagre? TIA
Just gets more and more fascinating.......