I'm on Foal Watch!

Pretty mares. I can’t wait to see their babies!

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I dont think that waxing up or even squirting milk means tonight. Have the flanks gone slack, is the tailhead soft, has the foal moved back?

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You were right. Neither foaled last night. But i checked every three hours anyway :wink:
I’m going to braid and wrap up her tail today so i’ll let you know about how lax her tail is. Her flanks were flush yesterday, not sunken. And belly is still … smooth and dome-y

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I think that @jvanrens is right, and that Rizada would be characterized as a sabino.

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ok. Well, she is a whole mish-mash of coloration. I think she is singularly unattractive… (color/markings AND conformation) and i’d NEVER have bred her intentionally. But, it is what it is.
Aesthetics aside, she’s a level-headed mare, and curious and brave and those are her best features.

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Which is exactly what a lot of people are looking for in a horse.

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lol. Yeah, but you have to look at them.
If i were not such a slave to my personal aesthetics i’d probably be a happier person.

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As they say, a good horse is never the wrong color. :slight_smile:

Plus, there’s something to be said for “ugly cute.” Not that I think your mare is ugly. One of my dogs is like this - she’s a greyhound but has what I refer to as chipmunk cheeks. So not classically attractive, but cute in her own way.

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like that old joke…

“Oh, but dear, you’re pretty in TWO ways!
(pretty ugly and pretty likely to stay that way)”

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With her color, solid bone and big feet I’m guessing there is some Clydesdale in the mix, possibly very close.

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Could be. But her herd, and the time she came from that herd, is generic mustang-y. She was a pretty little filly when i adopted her*, but then, she grew into what you see. She has a huge round butt… i mean HUGE!! And she’s cow-hocked. You’re right about her bone… She’s like…caveman boned.

*i noticed her close hocks but ignored. I shouldn’t have…

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Rizada is lovely. I love her face, and that roan-sabino is one of my favorite colors.

I wonder if the grey grandsire could influence the foals’ colors?

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Ahhh…i’ll be sure to tell Rizada what you said. In the photos i have of paternal grandsire from the range, he’d already grayed beyond recognition of underlying color. And have no idea Rizada’s parentage. Nor Brenna’s sire. BUT!!! we shall find out any time now!!! it’s fun guessing.

Wait…he was black (duh!). here are pics. First one of him is two years prior to Quigley being born, she lost that foal that she was carrying in first pic… Then a year off…then Quig, and by then he (Star) had grayed out.

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Gray is a dominant gene, so a horse has to have at least one gray parent to be gray. :wink:

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Somewhere in the pinned “useful info” topic above, there’s a brilliant post on milk testing and mare’s temp to determine when a mare is going to deliver. I used it for my last three foals, and only spent the night of delivery in the barn each time. Of course, your mare has to tolerate being milked and you need some distilled water and pool (spa) test strips that test for calcium. But it was wonderful and amazingly accurate.

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yes that is true.

Beautiful pictures! Thank you for posting those.

And @Montanas_Girl has just reminded me that you need a grey parent. So I grey may not skip a generation? Goodness knows I’ve done enough reading about Decidedly, Determine, Dancer’s Image, Native Dancer, et al. but it’s been years and I don’t remember if I came across any generation-skipping.

Grey is dominant so it will always show up if it’s present. The other side of that is that grey will hide the base color and if the grey parent is heterozygous (Gg) they can throw non-grey. If they’re homozygous for grey (GG) the foal will always turn grey, eventually hiding their base color.

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That ^^^ we had grey stallion and grey mare before color testing that consistently had sorrel foals.
The AQHA would kick them out for inspection every time at registration, then approved.

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Those are beautiful photos