Colored Cowhorse Ranch

Breeding Paint horses means that one is looking at color and patterns as part of the package that you want to produce.  This page will give you a brief and hopefully helpful introduction to the idea of color and pattern production in horses.

Before understanding color and pattern breeding it is helpful to understand some basic genetics.  It really isn't hard so don't let the word "genetics" scare you away from reading this. 

All characteristics of any plant or animal are controlled by genes.  These come in pairs and are located on the chromosome with specific spots for genes for specific things.  Every cell in the animal or the plant contains all the genes for everything that animal or plant can inherit genetically.  There's one exception to this....when egg and sperm cells form they split the normal pairs of genes and each cell gets half of what the rest of the cells in the body have.  When conception occurs these meet up with the genes from the other parent and form new combinations in pairs.  This is what gives offspring  a different look than either parent...having half of the genes of one parent and half the genes of the other. For each pair of genes from the sire and the dam there are 4 possible combos....and there are millions of genes.  This means that there are almost unlimited mixes when breeding. 

Basics

Genes are one of three things when it comes to seeing what they control. 

A gene may be "dominant".  This means that there only needs to be one of these in a pair for the characteristic controlled by that pair to show up. 

A gene may be "recessive".  This means that if paired with a dominant gene the characteristic controlled by the recessive gene won't show because the dominant gene partner takes only one copy to make its presence known.  A recessive gene will show its characteristics only if paired with another matching recessive gene. 

In horses this is easily seen with red and black coloring.  Black is dominant so if there is a black gene in the pair of color genes a horse has, the horse will have a black based color in its coat.  This is true whether there are a pair of black genes or a pair of genes including one black and one red.  The horse will have a red based coat color only if there are two red genes and no black genes.   

The third thing a gene may be is a bit more complicated but still not too hard.  A gene may be an "incomplete dominant".  This means that it has some effect when there is one of the genes but more of an effect when it is paired with another just like it.  This has importance in some genetic diseases as well as in colors of horses.  

Why is this important in color?  Because the popularity of certain colors comes and goes.  The palomino and the buckskin however, have long been popular and probably will remain so.  If you are a breeder it is a good thing to be able to predict the color of foal you will get when you breed two animals togethe

 Cream dilution colors

The cream dilution gene  produces some of the most popular colors of horses as well as some fairly rare ones that have only recently been recognized by AQHA and APHA.  It is an incomplete dominant gene having some effect on red and the thinned black of the bay horse but almost none at all on the concentrated black pigment in the bay horses legs, mane and tail or on a solidly black horse.   

This gene, when a single copy is added to a horse that is red to begin with, will give you a palomino horse.  If there is a matched pair of cream dilution genes in a red horse the resultant color is called cremello.  The same is true if a single cream is added to a bay horse.  The horse having bay and single cream is a buckskin while the one having two creams is a perlino. 

 Palomino

In color breeding palomino is a popular color.  The way to get palomino is to start with a red base colored horse...a chestnut or sorrel (they are the same red/red gene combo).   

 A red horse without a cream.  Photo by Theresa of Focus on Equus. 

If you add a single cream gene to the red horse you get palomino. 

Palomino stallion Smart Peppy Cutter, owned by Cheryl Humphrey, photo by Naismith Photography. 

Cremello

When you add a second cream dilution gene to your red horse (the one that became a palomino with one cream gene) you get a color called cremello.

AQHA cremello stallion Cream Bar Review, owned by Cindy Gibbons

The other color created by the cream dilution gene is buckskin.  To get a buckskin horse you have to start with a black one.

AQHA stallion Macriffik, owned by Brenda and Ernest Wederquist. 

                                    Bay

Then you add an "agouti" gene which controls the concentration of black pigment in the hair.  The agouti gene concentrates black in the lower legs, the mane and the tail and leaves it very thinly distributed in the hair of the body.  Although the body hair is actually black we see this as a reddish brown color.  So a bay horse looks like:

AQHA stallion Lean With Me

When you add a single cream gene to this bay horse you get buckskin:

AQHA stallion Hollywood Justice, owned by Judie/Mike Phariss

Perlino

The perlino is a bay with two creams.  This horse will always pass along a cream.  A perlino is one of the "double dilute" colors as is the cremello above.  These are always a pale cream to very light beige color and usually have a peachy mane, tail and lower legs (where the black would be concentrated on the bay and buckskin horses) and have blue to greenish blue eyes.  The eye color is a result of the double dose of cream dilution and won't pass along to foals unless there is another gene that makes blue eyes. 

Perlino QH stallion, Docs Producer Leo, owned by Colored Cowhorse Ranch, photo by Marno Ayers.

Smokey Black

The third single dilute color is called smokey black.  In this color you start with a black horse as above but you don't have an agouti gene present to thin out the black pigment in the body area.  The cream dilute gene doesn't do much to black when it is in the single form.  Therefore your smokey black horse will often appear very similar to what a black does.  Sometimes they tend to fade more in the summer sun and they sometimes have golden colored hairs in the inside of the ears rather than the black ones a bay or black horse has.  A smokey black can also look like a dark brown except the tone is different...and very hard to catch on film. The smokey black is the cause of much confusion on occasion.  If a smokey black horse that has one red and one black gene is bred to a red horse, or another color that  has a red gene,  and the two horses pass a red gene to the foal and not a black you have a red horse...and if the smokey black parent also passes along the single cream gene you end up with a palomino.  Because neither parent APPEARED to be a cream dilute there have been people who think that the "palomino" gene "skips generations".  This is not the case.  The cream dilution gene was there in the smokey black horse but was not easily visible.  When the genetic makeup of the horse differs from his physical appearance it can cause some confusion. 

Pictured is HAUTE MAGIC, smokey black Appaloosa stallion, owned by Flagtwet Show Horses,pictures by Brooke Flagtwet www.flagtwetphotography.com

Smokey cream

The double cream gene on a black horse is called a smokey cream.  Like the other double dilutes it is a pale colored horse (most often more a beige or even light, light taupe color) and the color is consistant over the entire horse (the perlino usually has mane/tail and lower leg differences).  This double dilute also has the blue eyes. 

We now have the basic colors down... red and black.  And we have seen what the agouti gene does to black horses. And what the cream gene does in single and double doses to red, bay and black horses. 

In addition to the cream dilution gene there are a number of other genes that alter or modify the colors of horses.

We looked briefly at the agouti gene.  It has no effect on red coloring so a red horse can have this and not show it but pass it along to foals.  If the other parent is a black horse and passes the black gene to the foals while the red parent passes the agouti you can still get a bay horse...even if mom and dad are red and black.  

There is now believed to be a second form of the agouti gene....one that produces brown rather than bay.  It is being studied at this time but so far it appears to be recessive when matched with the agouti that produces bay...which may be why there are fewer brown horses than there are bay ones.  When a brown horse has a cream gene it will still appear to be buckskin but often the legs and mane and tail are not the clear black of the buckskin that has a bay color to begin with.  The "points" will be more chocolate/dark brown colored rather than the black. 

Other Modifiers 

Other modifiers of color are roan, dun, gray, silver dapple and champagne.  Silver dapple and champagne are pretty rare in QH and Paint lines so will be only briefly discussed.  Roan, dun and gray, however, are common.   All of these are dominant modifiers so it takes only one gene to produce these changes in the coat.  This also means that a roan, dun or gray horse has to have at least one parent with this same gene. 

Roan

Roan is a mixture of white and colored hair.  The colored hair may be any of the colors (red or black or any of their modifications) that horses come in.  The only roan colors accepted by AQHA for registration however are blue roan, bay roan and red roan.  The other colors with roaning are not listed as roans but may have a notation on their papers that they carry and express the gene for roan.   

Roan horses that are true roans (there are two other patterns that may be confused with true roans...more on these later) have white hair evenly mixed with the colored hair on the body of the horse but usually not on the head, lower legs or mane and tail.  If these areas have white hairs mixed in with the colored ones they are usually much less noticable than they are on the body.  This is one of the ways to differentiate roan from gray (more on this later).

Red roans are a roan pattern on a red horse.  They can also be called a strawberry roan as the body color, at least from a distance, appears to be almost pink. 

AQHA red roan colt, Chute Im Good, owned by Nadia Heffner, Double H Horse Farm, Indiana.

Bay roan is a new term for AQHA.  Until recently any roan that was not a red roan had to be a blue roan.  This led to misregistration of colors and was confusing to many.  There are still horses registered as blue roans that are actually bay roans but at the time they were registered there was not a bay roan option.  Bay roans will have a more reddish tone to the body and face than a blue roan would have. 

AQHA bay roan mare, I'm With The Bouncer, photo by Jennifer Littleton, Washington

Blue roans are a black horse with a roan pattern.  They range from lightly sprinkled with white to almost the color of old stone washed blue jeans...very striking color.  The face and body won't have any reddish coloring.  The roaning on blue roans often looks like a bluish frosting all over the horse.   

Zack Blue owned and photographed by Bedonna Dismore, OK

Dun

Dun is another dominant modifier of color.  It may in fact be a cluster of genes that usually is inherited as the entire cluster.  This isn't clear yet.  Dun may be hetero or homozygous.  Unlike the cream gene a horse with two dun genes does not get even lighter colored or have the pale skin and eyes of the horse with two cream genes. Dun changes the body color to a lighter and "flatter" color than normal.  This is similar to the dilution caused by the cream gene but the tone is different.  Dun factor as it is sometimes called produces "primitive" markings on the horse.  These are called this as it is thought that most primitive/early horse types probably had these markings and they are thought to possibly be some early camophlage type markings.  The most noticable ones are the dorsal stripe and the leg bars. 

The dorsal stripe can sometimes be misleading on a foal.  Foals are often born with what is called "countershading" and it resembles the markings from the dun factor... but most often disappears with the shedding of the foal coat.  Occasionally an adult horse will be seen with a dorsal stripe that shows no other dun markings or the diluted body coloring.  This too is countershading and does not indicate that the horse is a dun or carries the genes for dun.  The dorsal stripe on a dun is usually a darker shade of the color of the horse....a red dun will have a dark red to reddish brown to almost red-black stripe while a dun will have a dark brown to blackish brown to nearly true black stripe and a grulla will have a black one.  The edges of the dorsal stripe on a horse that is actually a dun factored horse are crisp and clear while those of a countershaded horse most often are blurred.  Again, this is not the case 100% of the time.  Dun factored horses sometimes have secondary stripes that run parallel to the one down the middle of the back and these sometimes have barbs or hooks on the ends of them as if they were going to turn and run down the side of the horse.  The dorsal on a dun factored horse will run from the base of the mane to and into the top of the tail while a countershaded horse will often have an incomplete dorsal that disappears behind the withers and does not extend into the tail.  The tail of the dun factored horse will show the same stripe running into the top of the tail with shorter hairs that are the same color as the body of the horse on either side for a short distance into the tail.  You can often see the stripe all the way down the tail as well.  The mane of the dun factored horse is the same way...it will be darker than the body and often have body colored frosting on either side of it.   

The  leg bars are often the second most noticable characteristic of a dun horse.  These are horizontal markings across the leg, usually starting at the knee or slightly above it on the front legs and at the hock on the back legs.  These may be very clear or very faint or somewhere in between.  They usually reflect the tone of the hair around them...for instance a red dun will usually have darker red to red/brown to nearly red/black markings while a buckskin will have black bars on the lower areas and darker brown on the upper ones.  This is not always the case but often is so.

Dun factored horses often have a transverse bar across the shoulders as well as the dorsal stripe.  This is sometimes more blurred than the dorsal.  They may also have additional blotches of darker coloring on the withers and lower neck and sometimes secondary patches of color higher on the neck.  These can be referred to as a "cape" on occasion.  Dun horses will also have darker shading on the upper portion of the ears and usually a darker hair line around the edges of the ear.  Some will have a bar of darker color across the base of the ear as well.  Almost all will have a lighter tip to the ear...hair the color of the body most often.  Other markings include a mask on the face and spider webbing or cobwebbing on the forehead.  These may be very clear or very faint. 

The spider webbing is seen as faint concentric circles of darker and lighter color radiating out from the center of the forehead.  It is easiest to see above the eyes and between the eyes and ears on either side of the forelock.  Newborn foals often have some faint markings like this that are hard to determine if they are markings or waves in the baby hair... and sometimes that is exactly what they are. 

Masking is darker hair on the face, usually on the lower muzzle most noticable on cheek and nasal bone areas.  It can however be over much of the entire face in a horse that is heavily marked. 

Gray

Gray is a gene that overrides all other color genes.  It changes the appearance of the horse from one with a colored coat to one with a white coat and dark skin and takes sometimes years to do so.  It is a dominant gene so takes only one to make a horse into a gray colored animal....and any gray horse must have at least one gray parent.  Gray is not a color in and of itself as gray horses are not born gray.  Breed registries tend to view it as a color and don't mention the underlying color of the horse (which the horse has the ability to pass along to foals...knowing it could be important in breeding decisions).  Gray can be homozygous and such a horse would always sire or produce foals that would eventually become gray. 

Gray horses usually become gray in the facial areas first....one clue that a horse is gray rather than roan (where the face seldom shows any white hair mixture even as an adult horse).  They also change color over time with some changing rapidly and others taking much longer.