I have a weanling QH that was registered by QHA as a Gray.  He is a DUN now but his father is a gray.  His mother is a red dun.  Will my little boy turn gray?  will he keep his black mane and tail?  We have a horse that came from a sale that was called a chestnut.  When we bought her the vet at the sale put on her health papers that she was an applaloose because it was early spring and she had some lighter colored spots that had not shed off yet.  On close inspection I have decided she is acutally a really dark red dun as she has a dorsal stipe and tiger marks on her legs that can only be seen in the summer.  Do you agree that she is a dun or do you think she is a chestnut?

 I had another horse that I thought was a palamino when I was young.  I applied to the Palamino breed assoiaton way back when it was still an open color breed.  They said my horse had too much color in his main.  His mane looked white to me.   He was a light yellow tan,but he did have a pale dorsal stripe and pale tan tiger stripes on his legs.  The Palamino horse association did not mention these. Maybe they could not see them in the picture. So I suppoes he was a red dun also?  What do you think?  What colors are your horses, and have you had any dissagreements over colors?

The grey gene trumps any other colour gene, so if a parent is grey, that baby's gonna grey out at some point. 

I personally don't care about colour and admit to pointing and laughing at all the different names people make up for horses that are all just various combinations of brown, black and white.  But it baffles me that anyone who was color breeding (which occurs a lot with the duns, palos, etc) would use a grey horse in their program????  No matter how "pretty coloured" your baby was when it came out, it's going to go grey.  I guess they just hurry up and sell it before it starts to change so they can get the extra $$ for the colour?

Solaris:

The grey gene trumps any other colour gene, so if a parent is grey, that baby's gonna grey out at some point. 

 http://www.foxtrotter.com/genetics/greygene.htm

A good horse is never a bad color............ 

btw, Palamino is a color, not a breed.

I wondered that myself the lady must have been breeding for bloodline not color.  The sire has very simmilar breeding to the Dam.. My husband loves to bid on things at aution.  So like the dummy I am I took him to the sale with me to find me a decent riding horse.  I wanted a horse that was smooth moving and trained to ride for trail and western pleasre.  We had very little money.  I would have chosen a nice appy colt if I could not get what I wanted but my husband got excited and bought me a nice 6 year old mare that was in foal and she just had been ridden 90 days when she was 3.  So I ended up with a pregnant horse I couldn't ride and with a baby we didn't need.  She is a doll of a horse though and may just have that smooth trot I was after.  This year I plan on spending more time with her sence her baby is weaned.

I know that Palamino is suppose to be a color breed but years ago the Palamino registry would take any Palamino colored horse they thought had the right color.  Now the horse has to registered QH and to get in. 

stonepony:

I know that Palamino is suppose to be a color breed but years ago the Palamino registry would take any Palamino colored horse they thought had the right color.  Now the horse has to registered QH and to get in. 

Sorry I ment I know that palamino is suppose to be a color not a breed.

It just amazes me how many variations can come from black, brown, and white though!  It is one of the things that i love about horses are their seemingly endless variations.  I love colors from the shiny red chestnuts to the leopard appys and everything in between.  I'll probably never have a clear understanding of the genetics that produce this variety, but I can still admire.

Re: Solo's comment on a grey parent, if the parent is not homozygous for grey, there is only a 50% chance the foal will grey out. If you can post pictures (good clear ones) of the foal, epseically it's face, I can give you a good idea if it will grey or not. Or you can have it tested for grey http://www.animalgenetics.us/Equine.htm

I NEVER believe a horse's registered color, way too many incorrect. Many people do not know enough to know what a horse truley is. I cannot comment on what color your horses really were unless I saw photos. But your one COULD be a dunalino: palomino and dun.

I'm a little obsessed with horse color genetics ;) I know what most of my breeding horses (and some non-breeding, such as one gelding!) are genetically through testing, that's how crazy I am about it ;)

Jessi

Exactly, V&C - me too!  And you must be a lot smarter than me, Jessi if you're crazy about color genetics, they just make me plain crazy!  Maybe you can explain the Appaloosa's to me, I've had them all my life (46 years) and still don't totally understand them, no one does!  Check it out:

http://www.appaloosaproject.info/

LOL Yup, I got the basics of what is known of appies down thanks to the Appaloosa Project (I'm a "member" or whatever you want to call... have a paid subscription???)

They're very close to the Lp test, which will tell you if your varnish is homozygous or not, or if a "solid" baby is appy, ect. Now, if they could get the many PATN genes figured out ;) My appies were part of the Lp study :)

Jessi

CheyAut:

My appies were part of the Lp study :)

Jessi, What is the LP studdy.  I think color genetics is fastinating.  I have not studdied it much.  I would love to send a picture but my husbands computer is shot and this one is not hooked to the printer yet.

Joy

Another site I like is equinecolor.com. 

Suri is out of a flea bitten gray mare, some of her dots are chesnut, the ones on her legs are jet black if you look at them closely.  Her sire is a dapple gray, so I am expecting her to gray out at some point.  Her strip was very well defined and small when she was born, but is now starting to blur and widen.

I took some pictures today, and this is what she currently looks like at 8 months.  It will be interesting to see what her coat does in the future.

http://s28.photobucket.com/albums/c245/jmoon111/Suriah/

Stonepony, Lp is the gene that makes an appy an appy. Not the one that gives them white with spots, that's from several different genes called PATN. If a horse has Lp with no PATN, they are an appy, but not spotted. They'll have the appy characteristics (mottled skin, striped hooves, white sclera and varnish roaning). If a horse gets that AND at least one of the several PATN genes, then you get the white wtih spots (blanket, leopard, ect). If they ahve a PATN and TWO Lps, you get the homozygous appies, few spots, snowcap, ect. A horse wtih two Lp but no PATN is still homozygous, but they're still just a varnish roan.

The Lp study was to find where in the horse genome Lp is located, then there can be a genetic test (via mane or tail hair) to know if your horse has one or two Lp genes... plus it gets "us" one step further in understanding appaloosa genetics :)

Jessi

Squeaker's papers say black.  She does shed in jet black and then fades, and her sire is buckskin, so she may be sooty black, which would be close.  She may also be brown.  I think only a genetic test would tell for sure.

This is what she looked like on Monday (her head is down because I grabbed these while she was eating):