part 1

What gives my horse its colour? (Technical Stuff)

The very first thing you need to know is that EVERY horse has a base colour of RED (chestnut) or BLACK, this base colour can then be influenced by:

• modifiers such as: Bay or grey 

• dilution genes such as Cream or Silver etc

• white patterns such as Pinto or Appaloosa etc.

Very simply put, every horses DNA carries instructions for every colour available - the current thinking is that there are 16 factors that make up the colour and patterns of each horse.
It takes TWO genes per colour or pattern to provide the instructions...   These instructions tell the horse what colour it will be.

Every foal receives one gene from each parent and it is the combination of these genes that decides not only colour that you SEE (phenotype), but also the colours you can’t see (genotype).

WHAT THE?

Basically every horse receives one red OR black gene from both its mum and dad… 

• if it gets 2 red genes then it is a chestnut horse, 

• if it gets a red and black gene then it is a black horse that CARRIES red and black, 

• if it gets two black genes then it is a black horse that only carries black. (this is called Homozygous black).

Every horse has a BASE COLOUR of red or black – buckskins are black horses effected by bay and cream…. Cremellos are chestnut horses effected by 2 cream genes… a black pinto is a black horse effected by the pinto gene.

Every horse also receives a pinto or NON pinto gene from each parent – 

• if both parents are NOT pintos, then the foal can ONLY get two non-pinto genes so WILL NOT be a pinto

• If it gets one pinto gene and one non-pinto gene it will look like a pinto (to whatever degree – minimal or loud) and can pass either of these genes on to its offspring.

• if a foal gets 2 pinto genes (one from each parent) this foal will always have pinto foals (because it HAS to give it’s foals a pinto gene – it has NO non-pinto genes -  this is called homozygous pinto)

Each horse also gets two genes that tell it if its a silver, 2 that tell it if its a cream, 2 that tell it if its an overo etc etc etc....

For this reason, you can only breed colours that your horse has inherited from its own parents… 
If you use two chestnut horses you cannot breed a palomino foal – as no parent has a cream gene to give to that foal.

Hidden colours

To make things a little more interesting – there are SOME colours that your horse may carry without showing that colour… 
Lets look at BAY… the bay gene does not effect red hair, so you wont see it if the horse is chestnut - that doesn't mean the horse can't carry bay and pass it on to its offspring... it just means you can't see it in red horses.

These sets of genes are passed independently of each other… the stallion cannot decide what the mare will pass and vice versa… for instance if you see a bay mare that is advertised as always throwing buckskin foals… it means that every stallion she has been served by has carried cream and passed it on to the foal…  she was not responsible for the cream gene required to get a buckskin.

Next >> Colour Predicting

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