How do you get a liver chestnut?

[Go_Fish]

One of my Dad’s favorite mares would produce liver chestnuts when bred to chestnuts. She was a very dark brown/bay…almost black. She was a grandaughter of Poco Tivio and there were mostly bays throughout her pedigree.

She was bred several times to Par Three and a son of Par Three. Both Par Three and the son were what I would call deep brown chestnuts/livers.

My Dad did keep one daughter by Par Three. This mare was a deep chocolate liver with a lighter mane, but dark tail…big blaze and 4 white stockings. She would bleach to a god-awful burnt orange in the summer if she wasn’t stalled. If kept stalled, her dapples would be a gorgeous gold color. Interestingly, her mother never bleached at all.

[sunridge1]

My liver chestnut has never changed color. She is mahagony all the time and there has never been time where she was mistaken for red chestnut. No fading not in the least. Winter coat summer coat the same. There seem to be 2 types of chestnut clear coated and those interspersed with other shades of chestnut. Most of pictures posted here look chestnut with different shades in their coat, main and tail. Philip Spondonberg had them categorized.

[D_BaldStockings]

Sunridge - What a beauty!

I have seen very few true burgundy wine-mahogany liver chestnuts, one Arab and one Cutting-bred QH. It is quite a rare color and very striking when you see it.

I often wondered if it was related to not carrying agouti, as I have seen some blacks produce it, but that is just circumstantial; I’ve seen many ‘brown chestnuts’ out of black.