Yep, highly doubt there’s any linkage between gray and dun. However, selective breeding could have brought about a population of GGDD horses, making it seem linked 
Mouse is a good 15-2 and will be 15-3. She is registered APHA as a “solid Paint bred” but can be registered with any of the Buckskin registries IBHA or ABRA, they just haven’t sent the paperwork in.
cch…wondering though, if there is a difference because people who breed dun as a color in stock horses are very unlikely to incorporate greys in their program so there are fewer horses where the two modifiers meet in the stock horse breeds? Not saying all dun horses are the result of the “color breeder” phenomenon but still. It is interesting how often in the two come together in Draughts…subjectively seems to be way more common than it should be based on the odds.
Oh for sure there are stockhorse breeders (and maybe other breeds) who are very much into dun, and like any breed who (also) has an emphasis on color, gray is avoided at nearly all cost.
Entirely possible but I would suggest that there is probably much more gray in the foundation stock of the ID than in stock horse breeds (where there were really very few gray foundation lines…don’t know why). Gray is a much more popular color among English riders so perhaps those breeding ID’s sought it out? Be interesting to see stats of the % of grays and of duns in the different breeds. Also keep in mind that there are a lot of horses that get registered as dun based on baby coat with countershading that turn out not to be dun at all when mature coat shows up. By then, though, the registration is done (at least in some breeds) and while it may be changable in some registries even there it can cost some $. In addition…there’s a gal on another board that raises Lusitano and Andalusions (which I understand to be the Spanish influence in the ID?)…and the accepted colors in those registries appear to have some real separation from the actual colors of the horses…similar to JC calling palomino TB’s “chestnut” for all those years. I don’t know her level of expertise but she indicates that some colors don’t exist in these two breeds and then shows photos of foals that indeed do look like those colors! Very confusing.
Oh we definitely have a preponderance of grey and chestnut in the breed, the popular reason being given that so many of the dark colored horses were inadvertently culled through death loss during the great wars when IDs were so popular as artillery horses. Interestingly, in spite of this and even accounting for those covered by grey, true dun is a very rare color in the breed.
And keep in mind some breeds call it “dun” when it’s really buckskin
Not only breeds do that - most British breeders do too.
[QUOTE=JB;5656154]
And keep in mind some breeds call it “dun” when it’s really buckskin :)[/QUOTE]
Yep…even AQHA for years had tons of confusion between the two (and still does since lots of breeders are still confused). Would be good if in addition to photos for registration there were 1) genetics educated folks in the registration dept and 2) genetic testing required for those claiming horses of “exotic” colors (champagne, pearl, the combo dun/creams etc). Part of this is the lower registration fees for early registration…foal coats are enormously deceptive on occasion and there are “duns” that aren’t…are just strongly countershaded babies and may even retain the countershading as adults…“palominos” that aren’t …bright chestnut with lots of flaxen or flaxen/sooty mix in manes/tails…roans and grays that are mixed up or even combined etc.
It’s very frustrating sometimes if one is tracking color through old bloodlines or trying to explain to someone that their darling little chestnut with the flaxen mane and tail hairs is NOT paly when both parents are standing there and neither is a cream dilute. Fortunately most modifiers are dominant or at least incomplete dominants…pearl, silver, cream and agouti having some fairly simple differences in terms of what they effect (black pigment only for instance) but those are easy to learn. Shoot, there are folks that think that a homozygous black horse that is a bay (due to agouti) must also have a red gene because his body color is “red”…they don’t get the “thinned out” pigment idea…try explaining pearl to them.
Yes, this is true of the Connemara breed. The creme gene is very very rare in the ID. Also see a lot of greys called “roan”…though that is not uncommon in lots of breeds with no roan gene. As an aside roan is another gene that appears to be present in the Connemara herd but not in the IDs.
Here is our true Dun WARMBLOOD
http://www.allbreedpedigree.com/funny+girl+gf :
http://www.bilder-hochladen.net/files/3vua-gl-jpg.html
http://www.bilder-hochladen.net/files/3vua-gm-jpg.html
http://www.bilder-hochladen.net/files/3vua-gn-jpg.html
http://www.bilder-hochladen.net/files/3vua-go-jpg.html
She’s a lovely girl! Nice dun markings too…very clear dorsal stripe and leg bars, visible shoulder patch, light on the very tips of her ears and in one photo it looks like possibly a faint cobwebbing on her forehead. If she were here in the states I’d suggest having a tiny bit of fun and registering her with the Buckskin Association(s)…which also register duns…and showing her in a halter class there…she’d stand out, head and shoulders, above the rest (and could probably get points in the color classes!). It would definitely give them something besides stock horses to look at!
She is only two right now, actually thinking of which stallion to breed her to once she is old enough. She is in heat right now, but too young to be bred. I do not like to breed two year olds.
