nd1 can cause this as well, so she can have some markers of dun, but not BE dun.
At this age, especially with an old tired Winter coat, you can’t take her coloration int account.
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We shall see. I personally have not seen those dun colored ear tufts on a non-dun that I can recall. For example, this horse is a smoky dun grullo leopard - TMW Seven Card Stud exported to Switzerland by Ten Mile Walkaloosas. Doesn’t look particularly dun but again, look at those ears!
I know, I know, so I’ve ordered the tests for both color and pattern from UCDavis to finally put the question to rest because now it’s really bugging me.
I’m not sure what color she is, but if you send her to me I can get a closer look…
What a neat looking girl!
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nd1 easily causes light inner ear hair. My old guy, clearly bay, has light ear tufts, and being a TB x Percheron, is definitely not dun, not even despite the very strong dorsal stripe (which is another dun-like factor nd1 can cause).
nd1 does a lot of what dun does, with the 2 big exceptions being the tail, and anything more than maybe a subtle dilution of the coat color (which obviously is skewed here anyway due to LP)
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Results are in and she is: E/E a/a nd1/nd2 so homozygous black, not dun but may have primitive markings, and heterozygous for both leopard and pattern Appaloosa markings. No silver or cream.
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Not surprised at all That’s great you have that, in case you ever breed her.
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If she is homozygous black, what makes her body spots so brown?
LP/varnishing can make massive color shifting. See above
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That and the winter weather has a similar fading affect on some black coats, like summer does.
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As far as I know black with cream is smoky black and presents as black. A black horse may have many shades as does bay or chestnut. Nd1 can cause fading and is often the real genetics behind many fading or oddly colored black horses.
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How very interesting and did not know that. She’s still hanging onto her winter coat a bit and has not really shed out yet as we are still getting dips down into the low 40s occasionally. So I have not gotten to see what color she is going to express this spring. She’s definitely not the deep black of my sabino clyde cross at present, or like the other homozygous black leopard App I owned before; or even the smoky black leopard mare I also previously owned, which is why I really wondered if she was dun.
I suspect she is going to be rather chocolatey in her black color expression.
Cream doesn’t affect black pigment. Yes, sun fades nd1 black coats, but the biggest issue is the LP color shifting which doesn’t always happen, or happen to a large degree, but certainly can turn black into pretty yellow.
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That certainly seem to carry completely through the tail, so would suspect dun.
From what I can see of mom, she looks bay or black roan. Is she color tested? What color is the sire? Need to have a dun parent for the foal to be dun.
Cute foal - congrats.
That could be a dun tail, but I’m not sure that dorsal qualifies as a Dun dorsal. Foal flaxen can make it look like it’s the dun stripe going through the tail.
Any leg barring, or shoulder bars, or face masking?
All bets are off trying to visually determine color when you’ve got heavy varnishing/LP going on, so you can’t even tell what her color is (bay, black, etc) much less if she also has dun. But yes, it would help to know her Dun status, as well as the sire.
I am wondering if cream is also potentially at play, as that seems to fade dorsals sometimes. Have you seen foal flaxen go all the way down the tail that distinctly before?
I can’t tell if I think the seemingly darker shading under the gaskin and the marks behind the knee is trying to be barring or just shadows or maybe staining. I hope that @Cariboujaguar has more info for us.
Yeah, I don’t know either, I’d sure love some additional pics showing all sorts of things!
