Palomino - Breed? Colour? Both?

This is an interesting thread!

Chev - your explanation of the genetics is very helpful :)

I have often wondered what to class Ria as. I remember reading that one of the palomino societies specifies that a true palomino colour should be no more than 3 shades lighter or darker than a newly minted coin. Ria is definitely a little darker than that.

It just gets a bit wordy describing her as a chestnut-with-a-flaxen-mane-and-tail! Plus she has white hair through her coat - but she is nothing like a strawberry roan in colour.

And then to top it off, she has a white patch on her belly. My (not very horsey so probably wrong!) aunty who lives in america says that over there she would probably be called a sorrel roan sobiano :rolleyes:

It would be so much easier to call her palomino and have done with it!

Of course in winter she is mud-brown which is easiest to describe of all :D
 
Remember though that just because that's how the palomino society define it doesn't mean it's not a palomino if it doesn't fit in with their standard...

Palomino is cause by what's called an incomplete dominant allele - in other words, the action of the cream gene can vary hugely, which is why some palominos are a very pale cream while others are almost orange. Then there are those who have other modifiers as well - like the sooty type modifiers that make a chestnut into liver chestnut. They act on palomino as well - it's quite common to see very dark sooty palominos in Welsh breeding for example.

I'll try and attach a pic to show what I mean... this is Aberaeron Idris, a classy example of a sooty palomino. He would never be accepted for registration with any of the palomino societies, but genetically he is - and he produced palomino offspring too.
 

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The mare i posted the pic up of is a Haflinger. Does that help with the colour? Will be going up on to the yard where she is on saturday, ill try get more pics of her then. :D see if there are any better pics i can find aswell. :D
Heres a better pic of her.
Shes the haflinger in the middle of the pic. ;)
 
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I would never in a million years have thought to call him palomino! That has been an eye-opener :)

I think I'm going to track down a good book on colour genetics and find out more. (Boring bookworm talking ;) )

If you can recommend anything, let me know...
 
ponylover88 - she's a flaxen chestnut, without a doubt. There is no cream gene in Hafflingers, so no palominos. :)

Est - try Equine Colour Genetics by D Phillip Sponenberg, and Horse Genetics by Dr Anna Bowling - or another of Sponenberg's called Horse Color. The first one is really good - very detailed.
 
thank you! :D have always thought she was chestnut but everyone calls her a palomino.
she is lovely, rode her for the 1st time on wednesday. makes a change from the last haflinger i rode! after her i swore id never ride 1 again but Jessie has proved that not all haflingers are evil!! :D
 
chev said:
If there is a type of horse that could be classed as palomino, it's still not true to say it's always palomino even - the genes just don't work that way. Half of them will be palomino, a quarter will be chestnut, and a quarter will be cremello. Palomino does not, and never will, breed true for colour. That's genetics.
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Yes but as already said the breed society can quite easily not register those that aren't palomino in colour.

I'm not saying you're wrong chev because I don't know whether there is a US breed called Palomino (although I always thought there was), just that it is possible for there to be a breed called palomino that only accepts horses true to type & of the correct parentage which are palomino in colour too.
 
Chev, My friend actually has a palomino arab stallion, and his son is a palomino, and so is his grandson. The stallion in question is Eldyr, and he is from the famous Shulay stud, home of Shulay Gold"n"Silver. My friend now uses him on many different colours of arabian mare, and gets around 50% Palomino from him. She never had that kind of success rate breeding black Arabians!!!!!
 
mad mare1 said:
Chev, My friend actually has a palomino arab stallion, and his son is a palomino, and so is his grandson. QUOTE]

Chev is right - Pure bred arabs don't come in pally - nor do they come in coloured BUT there are breeders out there who breed very high % coloured & pally part bred arabs.

There was a piccy in H&H not so long ago of a coloured part bred who was something like 95% arab - looked like a full arab but actually wasn't.
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mad mare1 said:
Chev, My friend actually has a palomino arab stallion, and his son is a palomino, and so is his grandson. The stallion in question is Eldyr, and he is from the famous Shulay stud, home of Shulay Gold"n"Silver. My friend now uses him on many different colours of arabian mare, and gets around 50% Palomino from him. She never had that kind of success rate breeding black Arabians!!!!!
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Eldyr was chestnut. His palomino son Shulay Faberge was out of a palomino mare called Fayrelands Silver Lace. Silver Lace was a palomino part-bred Arab mare.
 
helenc said:
I'm not saying you're wrong chev because I don't know whether there is a US breed called Palomino (although I always thought there was), just that it is possible for there to be a breed called palomino that only accepts horses true to type & of the correct parentage which are palomino in colour too.
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I know this thread is old, but....

Over here, we call the palomino a 'color breed'. Much the same way as a paint is a 'color breed'. They have to have certain color characteristics to be registered as a 'color' or else (as in the case of paints) they would just be a QH most of the time - or whatever breed they are. Over here, most of the palominos you see are QH's, which is why a lot of people seem to think that Palominos are a 'type' rather than a color. Most of them you see, the 'typical' palomino, is built like a QH. I'm not saying that's right ;) , I'm just saying that's what a lot of people think of when they see Palominos over here in the states.

I'm thinking that made absolutely no sense whatsoever...but I knew what I was trying to say :eek: :eek:
 
I personally think Palomino as a color. Here in the United States though there is a "Palomino Horse Association". But it is almost all quarter horses. Palomino is most common in them it seems like, although many people are trying to get the palomino coloring into the Tennessee Walking horses, which there are many of them.
 
Just Found this searching net!!

The palomino is most definitely a colour and the basis for my dissertation. There are great number of combinations which can produce a palomino, the most common being chestnut x cremello giving 100% certainty of a palomino due to the homozygous alleles, chestnut ChCh cremello CrCr, chestnut x palomino gives a 50% chance of palomino and chestnut foal each, palomino x palomino gives 50% palomino, 25% cremello, 25% chestnut.

There are many breeds in which the palomino colouring is present and it appears as far as my research has proved to be slightly variable in colour dependant on breed for instance arabian horses produce a "better" colour by definition of the palomino society than the welsh breeds.

So far the most common parentage in the uk of a palomino is chestnut x cremello as people are breeding intentionally for colour and these also appear to be the most successful in the show ring. So far this research has been focused on the phenotype (appearance) rather than genotype of the horse, so there is much more to be researched.

Just a bit of info, if you have any questions I have a 12,000 word dissertation on the colour!!
thanks
 
There are no palomino Arabs; the gene does not exist in Arabians. There are high percentage palomino Arabs, where another breed has been used to introduce the colour.
 
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