Color of Oxbow?

[Beverley]

[QUOTE=DeucesWild11;6988311]
He cannot be true roan. It does not exist in TBs. He does have something going on however.[/QUOTE]

I knew a palomino TB in the early 70s, lovely horse, but the owner said the Jockey Club insisted it couldn’t be so, so the papers showed something else like ‘gray.’

And yet- knowing that the origin of TBs was the three foundation sires bred to local mares, and knowing that all color variations of horses have long existed in Europe and around the world, I think it’s silly that the Jockey Club says ‘nope, can’t happen.’ Because it can.

In fact, kind of in the same vein, in the early years of the TB as a breed, many race horses were gaited due to those initial crosses. They’d gait to the starting line, gallop the race, then gait on back to wherever they needed to go. I have never known a tb that ‘could’ gait but knowing that it’s back there in the gene pool, even centuries back, you can’t rule out real longshots!

[CrowneDragon]

I think it’s funny that the JC classifies horses as “grey/roan” if roan is not possible in TBs.

[fish]

I think a lot of these problems stem from the fact that the TB studbooks are a whole lot older than gene typing. We’ve got to grant that pintos of any kind, leopard and blanket spots, “roans” that don’t grey out, palominos, etc., are pretty unusual in the breed, so it is not surprising that the “allowed” colors ended up being ch, bay, dk brown, grey/roan, blk, with oddities producing designations like “light chestnut” or “light bay” for palomino or buckskin, respectively. Gotta admit that it makes sense to me-- especially of late, with the genetic explanations putting my head into such spins that I hardly know what color is what when I look at horses anymore!

[RPM]

Well some sources listed Winning Colors as roan when she was actually grey. Oxbow’s tail definitely looks grey to me.

[Slewdledo]

JC is resistant to change. When I was a kid there were horses registered as grays and there were horses registered as roans. It was a Big Deal for them to combine the two into one.

[RedMare01]

He has Rabicano coloring, not true roan.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabicano

[dani0303]

Mylute is an interesting color too. He’s obviously black, going grey, but looks much younger than 3 in his coloring. He’s more like weanling colored

[harvestmoon]

Good post regarding Oxbow’s color on Thoroughbred Champions:

http://www.thoroughbredchampions.com/showthread.php/16918-Oxbow!?p=471072&viewfull=1#post471072

[Madeline]

Sure. But rather than saying that the JC has no idea about color genetics, you must realize that they don’t care. TB’s are a breed identified solely by bloodlines. performance is important, color is not.

That said, if anyone finds a bright bay with a belly spot, let me know…

[harvestmoon]

Never said they did care. Anyway, I’d say it’s a mixture of both not knowing and not caring. At least they’ve added palomino. In the past they were registered as chestnut.

It doesn’t hurt to be accurate, though, even if it is just color.

[Lima_Bean]

He’s definitely a bay roan. I don’t care if the JC doesn’t recognize such a color or not. I was in the paddock at Saratoga last August when he was being saddled for his maiden race (which was a total flop BTW–pulled up and vanned off) and he was so very eye-catching.

I’ve never seen a TB quite like him and I’ve seen countless TBs. He’s very lovely and it will be neat to see if he passes this on to any of his get.

[Lima_Bean]

By the way, Blood-Horse just posted a video of his dam. Someone on FB mentioned to me that there was a debate over what color his dam was on COTH (I must have missed that post–didn’t see it) so when I saw this, I thought of you guys

http://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-racing/videos/12626/preakness-winner-oxbows-dam---tizamazing--foal?section=triple-crown

[Bacchus]

The Jockey Club uses color as a form of identification – it is not a color registry. They get photos in from farms/owners and have to decide from the photos what color a horse is. It would be insane to have to test every horse for a certain color gene. In a way, they don’t care – as long as the horse can be identified by the markings and color on its papers. (They also have the night-eyes to use.)

[harvestmoon]

I am well aware that it is not a “color registry”. But if they recognize palomino, it wouldn’t kill them to recognize other colors as well, just for clarity. shrug And nobody is talking about testing, at least I’m not.

Yes, it is used as a form of identification, but things can get confusing if a horse is registered as a “bay” but is actually a buckskin. A test is hardly needed.

[Lima_Bean]

[QUOTE=Bacchus;6991536]
The Jockey Club uses color as a form of identification – it is not a color registry. They get photos in from farms/owners and have to decide from the photos what color a horse is. It would be insane to have to test every horse for a certain color gene. In a way, they don’t care – as long as the horse can be identified by the markings and color on its papers. (They also have the night-eyes to use.)[/QUOTE]

I totally agree. They have Oxbow down as a bay, but if you told someone from the JC that he is a bay roan, that person would shrug and say “Okay, as long as we can identify him as Oxbow, whatever.”

If a bay roan walks like a duck and talks like a duck, then it’s a bay roan

[Gestalt]

[QUOTE=Bacchus;6991536]
The Jockey Club uses color as a form of identification – it is not a color registry. They get photos in from farms/owners and have to decide from the photos what color a horse is. It would be insane to have to test every horse for a certain color gene. In a way, they don’t care – as long as the horse can be identified by the markings and color on its papers. (They also have the night-eyes to use.)[/QUOTE]

Absolutely. Some people differentiate between bays; blood bay, bright bay, brown bay, etc. Some would just say bay.

[harvestmoon]

Nobody is talking about putting down different SHADES of a color (though there have been some horses in the past registered as “light bay”, not to mention “dark bay” and “brown”). But when a horse looks like Faux Finish (http://www.truecoloursfarm.com/horsepage.php?id=5), it seems silly to put down “bay” when the horse is clearly anything but.

In the end it doesn’t matter one iota. The dilute population is small, and really not bred to race, so it is very unlikely that a buckskin (or any dilute) TB is going to take the racing world by storm. My point is, if it’s a buckskin, just call it a buckskin.

[Miss_J]

[QUOTE=DeucesWild11;6988311]
He cannot be true roan. It does not exist in TBs. He does have something going on however.[/QUOTE]

They do exist, but are confined in one line of tb’s in auz/nz(?) I believe. Catch a bird, and a mare(slip catch) that has produced two(?) maybe three true roan foals. I believe there are no roans in NA, unless imported recently.

There is a good thread over on HGS discussing oxbos’s colour.

I don’t think he is going grey, but at the same time I’m not so sure he is rabicano, he has no white in his tail! My opinion is sabino ticking throughout… That’s just my guess, he sure is different and very cool looking!
http://http://www.horsegroomingsupplies.com/horse-forums/hey-acc-oxbow-another-lucky-chappy-509894.html

[Vibrant_Black]

[QUOTE=Miss J;6992081]
They do exist, but are confined in one line of tb’s in auz/nz(?) I believe. Catch a bird, and a mare(slip catch) that has produced two(?) maybe three true roan foals. I believe there are no roans in NA, unless imported recently.

There is a good thread over on HGS discussing oxbos’s colour.

I don’t think he is going grey, but at the same time I’m not so sure he is rabicano, he has no white in his tail! My opinion is sabino ticking throughout… That’s just my guess, he sure is different and very cool looking!
http://http://www.horsegroomingsupplies.com/horse-forums/hey-acc-oxbow-another-lucky-chappy-509894.html[/QUOTE]

Link doesn’t work for me. Help?

[harvestmoon]

[QUOTE=Vibrant Black;6992126]
Link doesn’t work for me. Help?[/QUOTE]

http://www.horsegroomingsupplies.com/horse-forums/hey-acc-oxbow-another-lucky-chappy-509894.html