What colour is our foal ?

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sarahlowe

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Deux Sevres, France
www.saumort.com
Here is a picture of our 1 day old friesian x anglo arab foal. Her Mum and Dad are both black. As you can see she is rather a silvery colour (it is not a trick of the light - on her belly and backs of her legs she is vary pale indeed) - would you call her a grullo or a smokey black or something else...? And should we see some evidence of colour dilution in her ancestors? Or will she just turn black? Any thoughts gratefully received.
image.axd

Thanks.
 
She is black.

Smokey black is black + a cream gene, grulla (female form of grullo) is dun + black neither of which she could have on that parentage.

It can take a while for a foals colour to come through.
I had a colt born last year who was peach coloured. His sire was palomino and we just couldn't tell if he was chestnut or pally. Ended up getting him DNA tested for the insurance forms - he came back no cream gene and by October was orange. He has just turned a year and is the most beautiful dark golden shade but he is chestnut, not palomino although if his mane continues to lighten, as I suspect it might, most people will call him a palomino.
 
For her to be a smokey black, there would have to be a cream gene getting passed down the line, and although it's not always very visible on blacks, I'd have thought someone somewhere would have spotted it. I'm also not sure that it exists in Friesians, although I don't know about Arabs.

Personally my vote is for black.
 
Your foal will be black. I have bred several black ponies and they have all been born a lot paler before turning black when losing their foal coat.
 
The foal is definitely black with no dilution.

Foals mostly always are born with camouflage colouring which is lighter than their true colouring. In the case of black colour foals the legs and under bellies are more than often tints of grey. At about 3-4 months when the foaly coat changes you will see the 'real' black legs!
 
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