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Bay color question - light legs?

Sport Horse Breeding
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#1

I know only a little bit about color genetics so hoping others could answer. Can bay horses have light(er) colored legs?

Mare in question is a fairly loud appaloosa (which makes it a bit harder lol). Her base coat is a red bay, definitely dark and reddish. However, her legs aren’t dark. :confused: They are a lighter tannish/ mousy color.

I was trying to think if I knew of any bays without dark legs and I couldn’t think of any - not including socks/ stockings of course. Google was also not helpful. I know agouti controls the distribution of the black pigment and it looks like (besides her legs) the black pigment is distributed to points - ear rims, parts of the mane and tail not affected by the appaloosa coloring.

From far away, her legs do look “darker” like they should, especially at like her hocks and knees, but I still wouldn’t necessarily call them bay/black dark. This picture is from this winter. http://i1229.photobucket.com/albums/ee476/SpotMyHJ/Tehya/e917d24a-fe49-429c-9c3b-6b654885abb1.jpg

All four lower legs are the same tannish/ mousy color, and she does have a slight white sock on one rear. Upon closer inspection, you can see that they are lighter.

So is this just normal and I’m just used to seeing bays with dark/black legs? Or is some modifier here?

#2

Are you sure she’s actually bay? She looks chestnut to me.

#3

She’s chestnut, not bay at all.

#4

She is registered as a bay, and to me looks bay. I haven’t gotten her tested though, so i guess she could be a chestnut, but I think her color is too mahogany?

#5

There are a million shades of chestnut. One of mine is very red/orange, the other is a bit more brown.

#6

well I guess that definitely answers my confusion in regard to her registered color. I know there are many different shades of chestnut, it just didn’t dawn on me she was chestnut. Chestnuts can have black rimmed ears? Hmm interesting, thanks!

#7

There is such a thing as a Wild Bay, that has lighter legs but still black fetlocks. However from the photos yours looks like a liver type chestnut to me.

#8

[QUOTE=SpotMyH/J;7005963]
well I guess that definitely answers my confusion in regard to her registered color. I know there are many different shades of chestnut, it just didn’t dawn on me she was chestnut. Chestnuts can have black rimmed ears? Hmm interesting, thanks![/QUOTE]
Technically, no, they can’t have black rimmed ears. BUT they can have hairs that are so dark they appear black.

#9

I’ll inspect them closer, but I’m now thinking they are just really dark. After looking up pictures of other liver chestnuts, she could totally be liver, especially with the light legs. Duhhh lol I’m guessing she was just registered wrong as a bay

#10

I once had a gelding who was registered as a bay when he was born. He was most certainly a Gray… There was nothing bay about him.

She may have had very dark legs when she was born leading the breeders to the bay color.

#11

Hopefully JB will chime in, but the appaloosa color complex can do very odd things to the main coat color, especially over time. I wouldn’t be surprised if your mare looked much more traditionally bay when she was young. The coloring around her muzzle speaks of “bay” to me.

Check out this blog for some beautiful examples very much like yours: http://equinetapestry.com/2012/03/08/appaloosa-color-shifting/

She describes her own Appaloosa, who had these odd “bronze” colored legs, and ended up being DNA tested black. Anyway, read on…

As for you with the gray…gray no more keeps a horse from being bay than a blaze keeps him from being bay. I’m sure he was indeed bay when he was born.

#12

Ksquared- you guy likely was bay when born. They aren’t born grey, they turn grey. :slight_smile:

#13

[QUOTE=Spot![](yH/J;7005946]
She is registered as a bay, and to me looks bay. I haven’t gotten her tested though, so i guess she could be a chestnut, but I think her color is too mahogany?[/QUOTE]
The color that appears on their registration papers is just what the breeder guessed their color to be the day they sent them in. It is not a set in stone thing.

I have one that is very similarly colored and it is down as chestnut on her papers. No one believes that either. Most people want to call her brown.

Being an appy she very well could have been born with that roaned out look she has now.

#14

[QUOTE=trubandloki;7006210]

Being an appy she very well could have been born with that roaned out look she has now.[/QUOTE]

T - you are right, she hasn’t roaned any since birth which is interesting. On the back of her papers, her baby pictures look pretty identical to her current color.

#15

I don’t see a bay there, but as others have said, the Appy genes can do weird things to a horse’s base color.

I know a “chestnut” TB mare who has one foreleg that is black below the knee. I still can’t figure that one out.

#16

My mare was registered by her breeders as a dun. No dorsal stripe within a mile… Guess it was wishful thinking…lol

#17

Whoa, interesting read. That third picture from the bottom does have similar coloring to my mare’s, especially with the sock. Her App’s tail is the exact color as the bottom of mine. It’s almost like it looks to be sun burnt, but its not. Just thought that was interesting too.

#18

[QUOTE=quietann;7006521]

I know a “chestnut” TB mare who has one foreleg that is black below the knee. I still can’t figure that one out.[/QUOTE]

Maybe she’s a chimera! :slight_smile:

#19

More likely a somatic mutation :slight_smile:

OP - appy genetics really screw with normal coloring :no: Your mare may be a silver brown, along with some “appy let’s screw with them” going on :lol:

Her head coloring makes me really think she’s brown instead of bay.

Wild bay pushes the black even farther off the body, and can leave a bay horse with next to no black on the legs, all the way down to just a ridge of black at the coronet in the most extreme, as well as lighten the mane and tail. Given the overall oddness to your mare’s legs, I’m positive appy is messing with it either by itself or in addition to wild bay or brown, and/or silver.

#20

[QUOTE=MuskokaLakesConnemaras;7006198]
Ksquared- you guy likely was bay when born. They aren’t born grey, they turn grey. :)[/QUOTE]

That is probably so. I was just using him as an example of registered one color but was a different together.

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