I’m interested in what you all think about roan Morgan horses, or more specifically, in attempting to preserve or reintroduce the roan color modifier gene into this breed. The last two registered roan Morgans were both born in the late eighties, so cloning, or using an outside cross that was quickly and repeatedly bred back to Morgan blood seem the logical options. What do you think about this?
Would the AMHA allow cloning? The stud book is closed, so not sure where you’re going to get an ‘outside cross’ and still get a Morgan, as opposed to a Morgan cross? Personally, I have seen enough Morgan breeders breeding for color that have sacrificed quality, so I wouldn’t be impressed with a ‘Rare Roan Morgan!’ In and of itself. A unique color or markings are great, but I want to be able to say that I would like the horse in a plain brown wrapper too.
As I said in your other thread, I see no advantage for the Morgan breed into adding the roan color. Morgans are already beautiful and come in some very lovely colors, some of which have been pulled from a handful of individuals.
Perhaps the most interesting color project in Morgans right now is Silver Dapple.
In my mind, the more colors you focus on, the thinner the project. A breeding project of that sort needs a large community of people dedicated to raising animals AND ALSO willing to be very careful about quality of the rest of the animal.
If you’re interested in colors and breeds, I recommend The Equine Tapestry, written by my friend Lesli Kathman. She covers not only different colors but she’s spent a lot of time poring through old studbooks and seeing how colors have drifted in various breeds over time, often because of one suddenly fashionable stallion.
If the 2 roans were of breeding quality, I would have no problem cloning them to bring the color back to the breed.
If they were not breeding quality, then no, not just for the color, and no to outcrossing to bring color in because of what poltroon said.
IMHO it’s acceptable to outcross to preserve a breed, or improve quality of a highly inbred, small-in-numbers breed, but Morgans aren’t there
Poltroon thanks for the Silver Dapple link. I remember Fiddler’s Carousel who was mentioned in the article. Interesting!
I also think… it will not be that long before it will be possible to use CRISPR genomic editing to do something as simple as insert a single color allele. That is going to be quite the rollercoaster for a whole lot of animal registries and breeds.
Just re-posting from the other thread. Scroll down to the middle for info on roan Morgans, which are, in fact, lost to the breed.
Oh cool! My gelding’s half sister is pictured on the smokey black page (MEMC Ladyhawke).
Me, I’m a fan of the plain Jane bay and black and brown Morgans. My two: brown and bay. LOL
