Spotted horses/ponies question

[Fairytale]

Coming to the font of all knowledge in all things horsey

We have Apaloosa and Knabstrupper spotted horses and we have spotted ponies.

Can anyone shed light, even a glimmer, on how/when the spotted pony obtained its spots.

For example, I had a Falabella stallion who was blue roan with a spotted blanket, and a friend has a pony of shetland type who is beautifully leopard spotted.

Presumably, they must have inherited a spotted gene from an Appaloosa or Knabstrupper at some point, or of course if there is another breed of spotted horse somewhere I haven't heard of yet!

Make any sense?

F

 

[Lacuna]

There is a British Spotted Pony breed - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Spotted_pony

Apparently they are historically spotted although there was some crossing with the Knabstrupper in the middle of last century.

 

[Pigeon]

There are cave paintings of spotted horses so I think it goes back a long long way. Good camouflage, I imagine!

 

[undergroundoli]

I read a small report in a magazine about cave exploration about how researchers had found the spotty pony cave art pretty hard to interpret, as although cave art is on the whole pretty realistic it had been assumed ancient man had gone a bit Jackson Pollok and done spotted horses for fun (I don’t think Appaloosas are big in cave science circles). Only some caves with pictures have spotted horses, but those that do have lots. No one could explain why Cave men had done this and only done it with horses, so they DNA tested bones associated with caves that have spotted horses painted on them and deduced it used to be a far commoner coat pattern.