BASICS OF HORSE COLOR

There are 3 basic colors of horses - black, bay and chestnut. Each color has it's own shades and special effects and descriptions, but these three colors are all there really is. There are shades of black, shades of bay and lots of different shades of chestnut. All other colors are derivitives or dilutions of the 3 basic colors

Blacks have a black body and black points. Bays have a red body with black points. Chestnuts have a red body with non-black points.

There are other genes carried from either the sire or dam that contribute to the 'extras' - grey, roan, paint, dun markings, cream, stockings, blazes, mane and tail lighting, champagne, dappling, black flecking. All of these are like icing added on top of the basic color. A bay tobiano paint horse is a bay horse that has had a contribution of white added which takes out the pigment in the color. Take the white off the horse and it is a bay.

This article concentrates on breeding for dilutes, or horses that carry the cream gene. The cream gene dilutes (removes the pigment from the basic color types) and produces palominos, buckskins, cremellos and perlinos. If a horse carries a single dilute gene, the horse will commonly be a palomino or buckskin. If a horse carries 2 dilute genes he will commonly be a cremello or perlino. A single cream gene in a black horse may not be apparent.

CHESTNUTS, PALOMINOS and CREMELLOS

Chestnut is a recessive gene and it takes 2 chestnut genes to get a chestnut foal. As many breeders know, almost every horse carries at least one chestnut gene, the exception is creams (cremellos, perlinos and smokies). Therefore, if you breed any 2 horses of any common color (black, buckskin, dun, palomino, etc) you have a good chance of both the sire and dam passing on the chestnut gene and getting a chestnut foal.

For example if you breed 2 palominos, you have a 25% chance of getting a chestnut baby. A common misconception is that if a chestnut horse has palominos in his/her background that they will have a better chance of producing palomino babies. Genetically this is just is not true, a chestnut horse can not pass on the palomino gene, as they do not carry the gene. The cream gene is dominant to chestnut, therefore if a base chestnut horse carries one cream gene, the horse will always be a palomino.

Since every chestnut horse has 2 chestnut genes, if you breed 2 chestnut horses - you will always get a chestnut baby. The foal could possibly have white on it or even be an Overo - but its base color will always be chestnut and it will have non black points.

Palomino horses carry one chestnut gene and one cream gene. A palomino sire and a field full of palomino mares will not breed true. In this case, you should get about half palominos, with the remainder being chestnut and cremellos.

Cremello horses carry no chestnut genes and two cream genes. They are considered a double dilute chestnut. Since cremello horses are homozygous dilute, all offspring of a cremello will carry the dilute or cream gene.

Breeding a cremello to a chestnut, will produce a palomino 100% of the time. Breeding it to a bay will produce either a palomino or a buckskin.

BAY, BUCKSKINS and PERLINOS

The bay gene gives a horse black points, black mane, tail and lower legs. Bay genes are dominant over chestnut genes and only one gene has to appear at conception to get a bay foal. When breeding 2 bays, you will have a better chance of a bay foal than a black or chestnut foal because you know both the mare and stud have bay genes and you don't always know what other gene they carry.

A buckskin is a bay horse, diluted by a parent carrying a cream or dilute. This gene takes the red from the bay color and washes it to any shade of buckskin it can. Buckskins by the current genetic standards do not have a dorsal stripe.

A perlino is a bay horse that has a double dilute present (much the same as the cremello dilutes the chestnut gene). In many cases it is difficult to determine if a double dilute horse is a cremello or a perlino.

Another common misconception is that breeding a perlino horse to a bay horse will guarantee a buckskin. This breeding will insure a dilute, but in most cases you will get about 25% palomino and 75% buckskin from the cross. Unless one of the parents is homozygous bay (carries two bay genes), there is no way to insure a buckskin foal. Since bay is a dominant gene, only one has to be present for the horse to show the trait and only extensive breeding or possibly blood testing can verify if a horse carries two bay genes.

Breeding a cremello to a hertozygous bay will give you 50/50 palomino and buckskin. If the horse is homozygous bay you will get 100% buckskins.

Buckskins also do not breed true. Breeding 2 buckskins will only give you around a 38% chance of producing a buckskin. The rest will be bays, chestnuts, palominos and creams. Odd as it may seem, breeding a bay to a perlino or cream will give you a much better chance of a getting buckskin foal than breeding buckskin to buckskin and breeding a basic color to a buckskin reduces your chances even more.

BLACKS, SMOKEY and SMOKEY CREAMS

Blacks are horses that have no red in their coat and have black points. Black is dominant over almost all other colors. Meaning that 2 black horses can possibly produce a palomino, buckskin or even a cream offspring if they carry the dilute gene. In some cases the single dilute gene will lighten the black coat to a smokey color, which can be confused with a dark chestnut or a brown.

If you own a black horse whose sire or dam was a palomino, there is a chance that the horse carries the palomino gene and will produce palominos or buckskins. Also, the dilute gene can be passed down from generation to generation being masked by the black gene and the owners never knowing that the black horse carries the gene.

A smokey cream is a black horse with the double dilute, like the perlino and cremello it has pink skin, a cream coat and blue eyes. Although the points on a double dilute black horse will be somewhat darker than that of a cream, it is difficult to tell one cream horse from another and many times perlinos and smokey creams are registered as cremellos.

DETERMINING THE HORSE COLOR

As mentioned earlier, in some cases blood typing has been developed to test for certain genetic markers and can be used to determine some factors in the color of a horse.

In most cases, we have two ways to determine the color of our horses. One is by visual inspection and one is by the offspring produced by the horse. Visual inspection can normally tell us what dominant genes a horse carries, but not if those genes are homozygous (except in the case of a cream). If a horse has a recessive trait, such as chestnut or overo coloring - we can determine some of the genes carried by such a horse.

Determining the horses genetics by their offspring can usually be accomplished within a few breeding seasons for a stallion. But can take many years with a mare.

Written By: David McIntosh Cedaredge, CO and Judy Struempf Casper, WY

Expected Results of Color Crosses

(as excerpted from Appendix 3 of Equine Color Genetics, by D. Phillip Sponenberg, D.V.M., Ph.D.)

Color of foals with relative frequency that is expected: