Color Rule Breakers
Color Rule Breakers
Sandra Hugus wrote:
All the little markers people have devised to try to second guess when the color on a tobiano Pinto will appear seem to fail with a large enough data base.
One prevalent theory that has been kicking around since the '60's at least is that lots of little broken spots (ink spots) is a sign of a true breeding tobiano.
The 2001 filly Lyric Pandemonium (Pandemonium Lyre x Pandemonium Chime has a tobiano color pattern with two areas with multitudes of tiny spots -- behind one elbow, and on one hip. Only two of the hip dots will show up in regular photos. The skin underneath the markings is salt and pepper, with many little dots. The sire line responsible for markings like these in others of my band is four generations back on her, with no incidence in between, so it was nice to see them come out again. However, since her dam is a purebred Arabian, she has only one tobiano gene.
I did a whole string of Pinto x Pinto tobiano matings, frequently getting the ink spots, but the only mare I ever had who did produce 100% tobianos in any significant numbers was HAMORITA, who was a registered 3/4 Arabian with a solid purebred sire... So, hers was "just luck". She produced 16 bay tobianos out of 16 tries, half by chestnut purebred Arabian stallions. Her patterns ranged from extremely dark to extremely white.
Her PtHA Ch. JAY DEE daughter PANDEMONIUM DEELYTE and son PANDEMONIUM DEESIRE both had the ink spots, but produced solids, although rarely. Eventually, I will get photos of these scanned and a page up to reference. Her granddaughter, PANDEMONIUM ANGEL, at the end of her breeding career, had the highest color percentage of anything currently alive on the farm, at 75%. She produced 6 Pintos in a row, then two solids.
One of my friends was telling me about breeding to a "homozygous" stallion, twice, and getting a solid colored foal each time. Now, with people advertising horses as "homozygous" without even understanding the term, who knows if the animal in question had actually been tested, or not. And how accurate is the test? Do we really know yet? Examples of so called "homozygous" horses abound who have produced solid colored offspring. Were these horses really tested? If so, how high is the error rate of the test?
Another gal who touted her stallion as having produced 100% Pintos had twins, one Pinto, one solid, and simply did not count the solid one, as it had died.
However, these are examples of an ethical or moral concern, not a color issue. Honest advertising on either stallion would NOT be able to claim "homozygous" or "100% color producer" once the existence of a solid colored foal sired by them was known, even if the owner thought they could "get away with it."
Let the breeder beware. When someone makes a claim for something, ask enough questions to know if it is a reasonable claim. Was the horse tested homozygous? How many foals have been produced so far? If I have a broodmare whose first foal is a tobiano filly, I can claim her as a "100% Pinto filly producer." This is true and factual. It just isn't very IMPRESSIVE when the total production record is considered. That is why on my web site, I list the production records of the mares and stallions. Anyone who is curious and has access to a computer can go, tally, count, etc. and VERIFY what has happened. Then, when one that is truly impressive comes along, it is recognizable and distinguishable from the ones that are "hype and hyperbole".
Another theory that falls in the realm of "old wife's tale" is that the "whiter" color patterns will produce more white offspring.
In my herd, for years, it looked as if horses with at least a 50-50 pattern and the "broken" spotting areas were also carrying the particolor factor. I used that as a guideline for quite a while before it fell to the vagaries of the tobiano pattern.
Look at Lucretia. She might be a "sabino/tobiano" pattern. You know, one of the whiter ones. I had CASI PANDEMONIUM and Lucretia in ONE year, both parti-color and tobiano patterns. Casi, Spanish for almost had enough white to pass for Pinto registration, but it was UNDER her tail. I had to actually trace the pink skin there and send the tracing in to verify that she had enough when measured. Hair has to grow out of the areas to be counted, so her biggest continuous piece DID NOT COUNT. When she flips her tail over her back, her pink skin and white hair can be seen. She also has white throughout her coat, especially in the areas that would be ruano. Here she has two color patterns, and still could barely be recognized as a Pinto. Of course, when she produces foals, they could be quite white, even if by a solid colored sire.
I had PANDEMONIUM ARPEGGIO and PANDEMONIUM ADAGIO, more very dark tobiano crosses born the same year. Both of their dams have had patterns with a lot of white, as well, all by the same sire.
Or tobiano x tobiano = a WHITER pattern. Nope. In my experience, it gets DARKER in each generation. OCCASIONAL wild white sports pop up, but horse after horse after horse comes out DARKER each generation. When doing research based on the records of a color breed registry, the results are skewed, as people frequently DO NOT BOTHER to register the solid colored foals, even though there is a division for them. Working from the breed records instead of working from the TOTAL output of a breeder over a long time span creates errors in production of Pintos vs. solids. Not everything gets reported/registered. The more costly the registration is, the less incentive there is for registering horses that will not bring back the investment.
My herd has been a rule breaker right from the start, though.
Louise looks like a straight tobiano, but based on the offspring, she is really carrying her dam's ability to do parti-color. Until she produced her solid bay filly in 2000, she had the best color production percentage of any of the broodmares on the farm. (KIRFAH is the dam of STRAWBERRY, a purebred Arabian parti-color with a 90% white color pattern sired by RAVEN). LYRE has a strawberry patch over his hips which tells me he carries the parti-color. As a foal, it showed up real well.
As a foal Lucretia had a patch on one shoulder that was the same way. She also has the one dark leg almost clear to the hoof and NO face white.
Her 2001 filly was a decent color pattern distribution. Stillborn.
DE NADA's purebred dam LANOTA was a black bay with a huge blaze, four high whites and a belly spot. Her son DEBUT also carries the parti-color, but he fits her theory.
The two genes giving the horse a higher spotting incidence sure does not work out in DE NADA's case. She has the worst spotting record of the Pinto mares I own. In theory, at least, RAVEN's parti-color gene or whatever should HELP her have more that fall at least into the minimal marking range... but in practice, NOT. Her eleventh filly finally came out spotted. As of 2001, she has produced four Pinto colts, one Pinto filly and ten solid fillies, for a 33% average! I told her for years that color is NOT sex related!
For years, Punc's only two really nice patterns were when she crossed herself with DELUGE (JAY DEE x GAYATEZ, a parti-color) and with DESTINY (JAY DEE x GAI CARROUSEL, another parti-color carrier.) Who knows what those kids were genetically! Her Raven kids are generally DARKER in pattern than she is. They get about the same amount of white as LOUISE or MAR O DEE. Only PARADISE and the 2000 filly Pride are 50-50's from Raven, and both carry the parti-color. And her solids are dark headed and legged from RAVEN. I think if Raven had been a tobiano, he would have had a very dark tobiano pattern.
Now, the OMEGA tobiano colts are different... His have face and leg white and 50-50 patterns. Had Omega been a Pinto, I think he would have been a very white one. Purebreds given enough chance seem to produce patterns that follow a pattern. It is almost as if they carry the genes to distribute tobiano color, even though they themselves are not tobianos.
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Last updated 10/16/2001.