there are some pretty wild paints in this HMA. quite a few roans…talk about oddly marked. Your basic bay roan stallion, after having been scarred up in battles is quite stunning. Have you seen those guys? (i have one, he is not as scarred as some of these guys…). I’ll find a pic of one of them…just a sec.
This one is
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My gelding that was the same color and nd1 was just referred to as bay.
Sure is - wow!!
Have you been able to find out what happened to SideKick, #8591? The high bidder paid $1340 for him. I hope he hasn’t fallen ill or had to be euthanized.
ah…yes, she’s asking someone she knows in BLM. Just heard back this morning actually, she’s got nothing, yet.
Thanks. I appreciate you trying to find out what happened.
My old mare is a bay roan and light like this at certain times of the year. She is quite prone to minor accidents. I look at old pictures of her and she is so much “cleaner.”
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Here are my roans. Bay roan (Sinnerman) did have some scarring when he came, his summer coat shows some of the bigger ones still to this day, but his winter coat -coming in now, (these photos just taken yesterday) hardly shows them at all now. I think he was captured in 2018? i’d have to look it up actually, not certain about that…
Other roan is a mare, she was only two when caught. And no scarring because a)mare! b)too young to fight even if mares fought out there.
Face or bay roan gelding. His face…nostrils and lips have some pretty deep scars.
This mare’s coat is “complicated” LOL. She’s a curly, bay-roan-overo (name is “Rizada”)
Middle horse, “Whisper” gray-toned mare’s color? Blue roan or appaloosa? Mustang people poo-poo the blue-roan idea. They say she’s an appy. Me, i have no idea…!
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Does anyone remember the Will James illustrated and written book Smoky The cow horse with the blue roan looking Smoky illustration on the cover? I loved that book!
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My copy was illustrated in black and white. But I bet I read it a hundred times.
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From that photo, I would go with appaloosa, though its also possible it could be both. Can you get a picture of her hooves and her eyes?
As far as we currently know, at least two genes are involved with appy markings: Lp (stands for leopard complex) and PATN (pattern). How many of each will give you everything from full leopard to a blanket to just a roany pattern. Appy roan (which seems to come from Lp) generally leaves the bony parts the darker color. From what I can see of your girl from this photo, that seems to be where her darker coat has stayed. Other appy characteristics are striped hooves, visible white sclera around the eyes, and mottled skin on the genitalia.
Roan normally leaves the whole head darker and gives pretty distinct inverted Vs on the legs:
While some extreme roans do show roaning on their heads, it generally leaves some dark around the eyes:
How long have you had Whisper? Have you noticed her grey progressing? Generally Lp horses get more grey from year to year.
She has a speckled udder and a specked vulva. Her hooves are not striped. Though sclera is visible, it’s not big white like some. And her color hasn’t changed. WInter coat is lighter than summer, but from year to year …pretty much the same.
So appaloosa you say? I have two non-appy appaloosas then. One is so varnished as to not look very appy at all. Mustangs have so many weird color combinations!
Here is here only decent close up headshot i have on my phone…*her orig capture shot from BLM
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I never had the illustrated edition but I remember checking that book out of the school library many times. They also made a Breyer Smoky!
https://www.identifyyourbreyer.com/identify/Smoky.htm
Photo of Smoky Breyer sold with a copy of the book (is this the one you’re thinking of?)
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Certainly sounds like appy to me, though of course without testing you can never say never.
Getting into color genetics is def falling down a rabbit hole. And compared to some things (like cats!), horse colors are fairly straightforward. 
I think Whisper’s head is just lovely, btw.
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Not sure I got the gazillion character link right but this is the cover/edition I was thinking of.
<3
(And I had no idea they had a Smoky Breyer model!)
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Sidekick is fine and he has been bought and paid for! BLM slowly but surely has been taking down the pages of animals paid for. Mine actually had actually been gone from there too but i didn’t notice. Purchaser has not gone online and announced who s/he is or where Sidekick i going. Yet.
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Link looks good to me! Thanks for sharing, that’s a beautiful book!
OMG I loved that book!!
Thank you. Funny how he touched my heart. Glad to hear he’s fine.
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So, i would like to chat about dressage prospects’ rear ends. I have the opinion that a good open angle and either a more vertical ilium or a shorter ilium bone would benefit. I found this to back up my thinking:
Monday, June 9, 2008
Dressage versus jumper conformation
The hindquarters are similar to the jumping horse overall. A critical feature for both dressage and jumping horses is to have the lumbosacral (LS) joint directly over the point of hip. This maximizes the power of the hind leg by making the most of the LS region’s rotation. The LSJ is the only point of the vertebral column that allows significant amounts of flexion and extension. Dressage horses tend to have a longer femur (point of buttock to stifle) and shorter, more level ilium (point of hip to point of
buttocks) when compared to jumpers; their hip angles form a “7” where the downward stroke is the femur. They have a more open angle from ilium to femur, and while the stifle should be low, this is not as critical for the dressage horse. Dressage horses will tend to to have a straighter hock, as it will require less effort to close the joint angles and collect.
