Chev - what colour do you think?

[Lgd]

This my friend's horses Rolo. His passport does describe him as dun but we are not totally convinced as to him being dun or buckskin (or some funny colour never heard of :D )

I don't have any pics of him clipped, but he goes a gorgeous bronze colour.
He does have a dorsal stripe. Unfortunately legs are covered in the pics but he looks as though he may have faint zebra stripes. Difficult to tell as he does have quite a lot of feather which is almost cream coloured. The hair inside his ears is cream as well, although the actual points are black

His breeding is Meadowbrook (TB) who was bay out of a Welsh D x Shire mare. I would probably have described her as smoky dun. She produced 5 foals that I know of, - two full brothers (by Broadleaf) one was the same colour as herself, the other a bright bay; a black (stally was black); a palamino; and Rolo.

http://groups.msn.com/upsaddle2/lgd.msnw?action=ShowPhoto&PhotoID=17363

http://groups.msn.com/upsaddle2/lgd.msnw?action=ShowPhoto&PhotoID=17364

[smartie bean]

awwww he is a lovely colour i think hes kind of a dun/buckskin lol becasue he doesn't look all one colour lol but hes still vrey pretty :D

[chev]

He doesn't look quite right for buckskin, and as far as I know there's no dun in TBs, Welshies or Shires.

He looks like bay plus panagre; the panagre lightens soft parts. Imagine him in orange and he'd look like Hafflinger colour, which is chestnut + panagre.

Any idea what colour stallion they used to get palomino from his mum? If he was plain, it's possible mum has a cream gene (common in Welshies, and can look like a dark chocolate dun type shade on black based horses) and that he is buckskin, but the shade is unusual if that's what he is.

He's very nice... :D

[ambatt]

Could you get buckskin with pangare Chev? Cos he does look to have typical pangare distribution.

[chev]

As far as I know you can get panagre on any horse, in combination with other genes. The more I look at him, the more convinced I am that he definitely does have panagre - it's obvious on his chest, legs and all soft bits.

[ambatt]

Then again he does look quite orangey - what an unusually coloured chap he is.
Still wouldn't like to say what coloure he is though!

[Lgd]

China (the pally) was by a bay (but I know he had a chestnut dam). She was a very pale palamino - could this be an element of the panagre being expressed as well?

It was the lack of dun in welshies that had me really baffled as to where the colour came from if he really was dun, and he didn't have typical bucksin characteristics either.

Dark chocolate would describe Mum and the half-brother's colour. I don't have any pics of Mum at all and G's website is down so none of Baloo available. Both of them had almost a dapply effect to the coat in the summer but never saw it with any of the other offspring.

I will try and get a pic of him nekkid at the weekend - his clipped colour might give more clues I guess.

ETA Rolo in summer 'plumage' can look like a very bright bay in certain lights so underlying bay would explain that effect as well.

[chev]

If she's thrown a pally to a bay, then she is definitely carrying cream, which is what will be giving her the dark chocolate colour.

I'm inclined to say he is buckskin then; that combined with the panagre could well be giving him that colour.

[xloopylozzax]

you can get dun welshies btw

[chev]

I've never seen a documented dun Welshie. Lots mimic dun with pseudo dorsal stripes, but they are down to countershading.

True dun does not exist in Welshies with verified breeding.

[xloopylozzax]

ok but i thought i had seen some showing regitered etc
im just googling at the moment to check :)

[chev]

Are you sure you don't mean buckskin? They have golden body colour with black points. Often misregistered as dun, but they're not. Dun is base colour + dun gene. Buckskin is bay + cream gene (same gene that makes chestnut palomino). There are a lot of buckskin Welshies, but they have nothing to do with dun.

[coss]

re dun genes (so staying on topic but not on Lgd's horse ;)), is the dun gene present in lusitanos?

[chev]

This is Danaway Flashjack (http://www.welshcobs.info/pages/danawayflashjack.htm) - buckskin, not dun. :)

[chev]

re dun genes (so staying on topic but not on Lgd's horse ;)), is the dun gene present in lusitanos?

Not sure - ambatt would be the best person to ask. I'll see if I can find out...

[xloopylozzax]

I always thought buckskin was an american term because i have never come across it until i played some sim games (based in usa)
the only colours that you cant register a welsh as is piebald or skewbald.

although there has been a 'pure' welsh born that is coloured but there is some questions around about that :D
either way my family and people i know refer to horses as dun or palomino (orange basically)
when they are dun do they have to have a dorsal stripe?

[Miriam]

I have to admit that I've seen him and he's a lovely colour. Very unusual.

Even if you can't figure out what colour he is I'll still steal him tell Sarah :P

[chev]

Lots of people thought buckskin was an American term for dun. The fact is that they are completey different genetically, have different appearence, and are two separate unrelated genes.

The problem was that the US understood more about genes and colouring than the UK; so UK studbooks are years behind. Think the WPCS is only just starting to register buckskins as buckskin and not dun.

Dun gives you a flat, washed out body colour. Heads tend to be darker shades, as do legs. They always have a dorsal stripe and usually zebra markings on the legs.

Buckskins have golden body colour, undiluted black points, and countershading rather than dorsal stripes.

Another term still not recognised by the WPCS is silver dapple. I have a silver dapple Welsh colt registered as "dark dun/palomino'. He does not have the genes that would make him either of those colours.

Until people catch up with the US terminology, confusion will continue. People who insist on calling buckskin dun, and silver 'dark palomino' are perpetuating confusion, and slowing down progress with the GB stud books.

[xloopylozzax]

yeah i came across the term chocolate palomino it just looks like the horse rolled in mud :D
silver dapple- as in grey?
on a slightly different topic
liver chestnut (what my horse is registered as)
is chestnut with a light mane and tail
why do bays (brown with black mane and tail)
get registered as liver chestnut is it the same reason?

[chev]

Silver dapple has nothing to do with grey (although it sounds like it could be!) It's black with a silver gene, which turns the mane and tail white or near-white, and the body to a dark chocolate colour. This is my silver dapple colt;

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v231/bronyfelin-ponies/Dec071.jpg

Liver chestnut is dark livery-colour chestnut. Some have light manes and tails, others have dark mane and tail.

One of my liver chestnuts who has white hair in both mane and tail;

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v231/bronyfelin-ponies/Tiacanter.jpg

I've never come across a bay registered as liver chestnut :confused:

[xloopylozzax]

thats a salt and pepper tail (not black)
on bebo i have seen people enter best chestnut comps with "liver chestnut" bays and swear blindly they are registered LC

[xloopylozzax]

BTW i like the 2nd one :D

[chev]

Which is salt and pepper tail? I didn't say either were black :confused:

Can't tell you why people enter bays as chestnuts!

[ambatt]

Not sure - ambatt would be the best person to ask. I'll see if I can find out...

Yes definitely dun in the PSL (Lusitano) and also in the PRE (Andalusian) .

Dun is much rarer in the PRE due to a change in breeding policy in the 1960s when certain colours were no longer accepted in the Spanish Stud Book. That rule has since been rescinded and now all colours bar parti-coloured and spotted are accepted.

Buckskin appears in both breeds, plus obviously the other dilutes of perlino. champagne, palomino, other dun factor colours, cremello.

Oh and of course Pearl, which is still under research but available as a test via DNA.

[coss]

Yes definitely dun in the PSL (Lusitano) and also in the PRE (Andalusian) .

Dun is much rarer in the PRE due to a change in breeding policy in the 1960s when certain colours were no longer accepted in the Spanish Stud Book. That rule has since been rescinded and now all colours bar parti-coloured and spotted are accepted.

Buckskin appears in both breeds, plus obviously the other dilutes of perlino. champagne, palomino, other dun factor colours, cremello.

Oh and of course Pearl, which is still under research but available as a test via DNA.

thank you :p - now to go and find out what the dilutes are :confused:;)

[ambatt]

Have a lookie:

http://www.vgl.ucdavis.edu/services/coatcolorhorse.php

http://www.homozygous-horses.com/pearl.html

http://www.sommerranch.com/html/balitor.html

http://www.doubledilute.com/color-chart.htm

But don't blame me if you are completely :confused: I am...

[coss]

i like the last link - nice and simple ;)

[chickflick1066]

LGD, the horse in question is totally lush :D

[Miriam]

Chickflick hands off he's mine :P

[xloopylozzax]

salt and pepper mane and tail is the second one
a mixture of black grey white and maybe another colour hairs.
its what i have always known it as from my family and people we know- i dont know whether it is correct sorry.

do Bay's have white legs??

[chev]

There's no black in there; she's chestnut, can't produce black pigment.

Bays have black legs unless they have socks. Some bays known as wild bay have reduced black on their legs.

ambatt - I read earlier that the new dun test isn't for use in Spanish horses; apparently the dun in Spanish horses is a different dun to other breeds... intriguing stuff, given that dun is an atavistic colour...

[xloopylozzax]

in her tail?? it looks from the picture like there is maybe im mistaken
(2 LC stallions we used to have had S&P mane and tail i will try and dig out a picture)

how did you learn about colour genes etc
i am beginning to realise how interesting it actually is :)

[coss]

There's no black in there; she's chestnut, can't produce black pigment.

Bays have black legs unless they have socks. Some bays known as wild bay have reduced black on their legs.

ambatt - I read earlier that the new dun test isn't for use in Spanish horses; apparently the dun in Spanish horses is a different dun to other breeds... intriguing stuff, given that dun is an atavistic colour...

:eek::confused::p when my exams are over i'm going to be researching horse colours now... its very interesting!:p

[ambatt]

There's no black in there; she's chestnut, can't produce black pigment.

Bays have black legs unless they have socks. Some bays known as wild bay have reduced black on their legs.

ambatt - I read earlier that the new dun test isn't for use in Spanish horses; apparently the dun in Spanish horses is a different dun to other breeds... intriguing stuff, given that dun is an atavistic colour...

Hi Chev,
I saw that when I bothered to read the details of the test!:rolleyes: however, they are looking for participants with horses of Iberian descent for the continuing research. (I think Ebyss is thinking of submitting her colourful herd!). What I don't understand is this:

mtDNA has shown that the Sorraia is the proto-Iberian. It has been DNA'd to within an inch of its life, it only comes in dun and derivatives i.e. grullo, ergo the markers for dun must be fairly fixed in that population (3.5% inbreeding coefficient) so I would have thought finding the marker in Iberians should be a relative doddle?

Plus the Icelandic - primitive descendents of the plains/steppe horses of Asia, come in every conceivable dilute colour imaginable, closed herd for over a thousand years, geneticists dream! Surely easy to find markers there?

Final thought - as 75-80% of all the US horse breeds are of Iberian descent anyway, what horses have they been using to fix the dun marker if they are excluding horses of Iberian descent :confused:

Is it the discovery of pearl that has skewed it? That particular colour gene has also been found in cold bloods too.

Have I missed a trick here?

[Denbenj]

Lovely horse !!! whatever colour he may be.


A Vet from my practice who Did Kais Passport was putting him down as a Chestnut luckily I noticed... I did kindly inform him hes Palamino.. to which he said.. Oh right looked at Kai again, and 'kindly agreed' !!! :eek:

[chev]

ambatt - as I understand it, the test doesn't identify the gene itself, but protein markers associated with dun. It isn't a dun test as such; it's a zygosity test. So you send in pciture of the horse, and information on parents, and a hair sample, adn they tell you whether it tests as hetero or homozygous.

But because it's protein markers associated with dun rather than dun itself, all they can do is tell you if the horse is homoxygous or not.

Say the protein markers are 12345. A horse that tests 1/1 2/2 3/3 4/4 5/5 would be classed as homozygous. A horse that tests 1/2 2/4 3/1 4/5 5/3 would be heterozygous. This has worked in all horses tested barring Iberian and Spanish horses - hence not testing them. The question is how a horse can be dun to look at but apparently have different protein markers associated with a particular colour.

The reason they want pictures and parentage information is to make sure that a horse inherits 12345 from one or both parents; not 123 from one and 45 from another.

[chev]

Meant to add it interests me because of the atavistic tendencies in dun; that horses who are not dun will over time without man influencing their breeding develop dun characteristics. Perhaps there is more than one 'dun gene' at work, and that mutations over time happen in different places but produce the same effect.

[ambatt]

Thanks Chev, succinct and brilliant explanation as always:D

That was one of my other meanderings about Sorraia, are they dun because they are dun or have they developed atavistic dun as they have always been kept either as a remnant population in geOgraphical isolation (like the Exmoors) or because they have been kept in small closed herds?

[stacyh]

Hi yes he is certainly Dun because he has black points & black mane & tail.

[No_Angel]

His colour is really interesting.
He looks similar to my cob, who I always thought was bay, and a few people have asked us now if he is dun.
He doesn't seem to have a dorsal stripe, but does seem to have counter shading.
He has the lighened muzzle and light underside.
His colour changes throughout the year, he looks like the horse pictured, he also goes a gingery colour, almost chestnut (still with black mane and tail) and then a very dark bay with dapples.
The vet asked if he had exmoor in him (he does kind of look like a large exmoor)

[chev]

Hi yes he is certainly Dun because he has black points & black mane & tail.

Actually the opposite is true. Duns have diluted black points because dun dilutes both black and red pigment so if a horse has black points it's not dun. Cream dilutes red pigment but not black when a horse carries one copy of cream hence the black points.

[jowyles]

Dexter has those interesting colour (like rolo and No Angels Murf) He is shire x haflinger - He has turned out to be a wild bay with panagre and sabino. This has mad him a very light bay, he has reddish tinge to his coat in winter and more cream in summer - probably due to being in the sun all the time!
He is lighter underneath but his points arn't very black. His mane and tail have white streaks and also some brown hairs. He also has a lighter muzzle.

[MajorityRules]

I skipped a page so I may be wrong.. Wouldnt you call that a sandy bay?

[acw295]

I find the whole colour thing fascinating and baffling at the same time :confused::D

But what a gorgeous horsie he is - so pretty :)

Must be lovely to have a horse that is so hard to describe, may not be completely unique but bet they stand out wherever they go!

[Dogrose]

I've noticed pangare lightens bay, I'd say he was a bay with pangare, nothing else, I love the colour :) I think a lot of continental heavy breeds have this type of colouring, either in bay or chestnut.
Silver dapple is interesting, very pretty especially in the bay form (silver bay) but you have to be careful breeding it as it carries with it genes for eye deformities.
We have a sorraia cross mare here, she is a dark dun with zebra stripes and cobwebbing on her face, her sister used to live here too, she was self black based and was a greyer colour with a two tone mane, what they call grulla in the US and mouse dun here. They seemed like regular duns to me, if its not normal dun its a very good mimic!

[chev]

Silver dapple is interesting, very pretty especially in the bay form (silver bay) but you have to be careful breeding it as it carries with it genes for eye deformities.

The link has only been found in Rocky Mountain horses, and then not consistently.

[chev]

Quote from site re studies done;

"The 2006 Swedish University study on the silver gene seemed to indicate that there is some question as to the actual existence of the ASD disorder outside of the Mountain Horse breeds, and that its link there is more one of bloodline than color."

Link to page (and the Swedish study) here. (http://www.mindspring.com/~morgans/aboutsilver.htm) :)