And JB that Ava Minted Design mare is a really cool color transition in Grulla. From this to that photo you posted:
This is Lacey at 1 month:
And again, note the ear tufts on Ava Minted Design above.
And I just found these additional photos of Lacey on the stallion owner’s page (I did not breed Lacey; but purchased her as a yearling), which I had not seen before. Definitely looking quite Grullo.
This is Lacey’s dam:
Yes - LP color shifting takes time, which is why foal pics are the best for trying to determine color
in the adult pic, it doesn’t matter. The foal ear tufts are more meaninfful
Lacey does tend to look grullo as a foal.
Is the sire tested for dun? Need a dun parent for the foal to be dun and mare does not appear to be. Lighter ear tufts are generally associated with nd1.
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Sire has not been tested for Dun; just 5 panel.
I say get her tested to remove all the guessing.
Like was said above, LP does weird things to colors.
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Yeah, I plan to as the question is bugging me. Just other things to spend the $80 on at the moment.
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do you have any pictures of her directly from the back, as a foal? The dun factor of the tail usually doesn’t lie. There’s enough varnishing or color shifting going on now, that a current pic won’t be reliable.
Won’t the ApHC decide what color she really is? Or do you have to test regardless?
No matter what color she turns out to be , she is striking!
Maybe things have changed but last time I knew they registered them as the color that the person sending in the paperwork says they are.
How can they be her? The foal pictured is a leopard all over and your filly has a dark head and neck?
Really? I thought they based it off of the pictures sent but of course they can change dramatically from what they were as a foal. It has been about 16 years since I had my ApHC mare registered…
The 2020 black filly in the top left of the “flyer” is clearly the horse in question, dark head and all.
The post above that - “Lacey at 1 month” is clearly the 2020 black filly in the top left
All darkening of the neck is solely from the progression of appy genetics, just like Ava Minted Design got lighter in color, while getting more color in her shoulder and girth area
I have never experienced that in any Appaloosa I have ever owned. Roaning and losing color, yes. Adding solid color? No.
I had no idea.
Varnishing does remove color as they get more and more white hairs, sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly, like gray.
You can see all the spots in all the same places on this foal pic
as in this older pic, but the spots are bigger in relation to each other, filling in some places, and the “feathering” outside the spots are also filling in more dark color
Less than lovely pasture snap from the other day still sporting winter woolies.
To me it does look like she has the dark mask of a dun with the lighter body color and darker points. She does not and never has had any fawn coloring on her nose at all, like a bay or “brown” horse would have. But still has those really dun ear tufts which you don’t see on blacks and bays. 
This is correct. Color testing is not required but probably should be given color transitions Appaloosas and certain colors undergo, especially as a horse matures.
It’s been a unique experience for me as well. I was surprised too when I saw her foal photos. Obviously her foal coat was hiding a lot of expression and then her spots have really haloed.
