jaimebaker - yes, afaik those are tested browns. Can you show me a few pictures of what you consider brown? So so so many people still think that many of the dark bays out there are just that - dark bay - when in reality they are brown (seal brown if that dark, otherwise just brown).
mojo - yes, there are fading and non-fading blacks, but they’re still genetically black 
Same with bays and chestnuts.
carrie_girl - those pictures aren’t very good for color telling 
Browns
http://www.morgancolors.com/tashotaswarriorside.jpg
http://www.ultimatehorsesite.com/about/horses_kahlua.jpg
http://www.ultimatehorsesite.com/images_colors/brown3.JPG
Sooty bays
http://www.vistahorsefarm.com/images/dream-hunter-rail2.jpg
http://image4.equinenow.com/194523_1/fore_leg_horse.jpg
http://www.horseclicks.com/photos/horses/02/17/34779-1-x.jpg
And of course, the horses you call brown, I call sooty bay.
Of the ones you list as brown, I agree - they are (dark) seal brown. No questions there. But brown is not limited to being that dark.
Of the sooty bay category, I’d buy bay for the 2nd horse. The 1st is iffy for me, but the 3rd really looks brown in that picture
Are any of those sooty bays tested as such? If they haven’t been tested as At by PetDNA, then it’s speculation 
[QUOTE=JB;4515231]
Are any of those sooty bays tested as such? If they haven’t been tested as At by PetDNA, then it’s speculation ;)[/QUOTE]
You said as far as you knew, the ones you posted were tested as brown. I would like something a little bit more definite than that. Like a link to the website saying they tested brown, or something similar. I’m not trying to be argumentative, but I have to stare at horse colors all day for my job (equine artist) and most certainly if there is something new on the genetic front with testing and all the horses that myself and others have been calling sooty bays, should now be called browns, well…I’d like to know so I can be correct with my work.
As for the horses I posted being tested, well, I have no clue. You didn’t ask that. You asked what I called brown and what I called sooty bay. It could also be semantics. What I call sooty bay, you call brown. What you call brown I call sooty bay because you can see the sooty factor on the horse. It behaves fairly the same starting along the topline and drifting down. Same goes with sooty palominos, sooty buckskins, etc. Also called ‘smutty’. AFAIK, there isn’t a test for ‘sooty or smutty factor’. But I don’t know…haven’t been over to UC Davis’ website lately.
You are saying horses with beige undertones are brown and not bay and that’s just not correct all of the time. Bays come in a variety of shades. My own bay mare has a beige belly. She’s a wild bay, but a bay nonetheless. Nothing brown about her. Bays can be anywhere from vibrant blood bays, to subdued bays that could be argued to be buckskins but are not.
, but I think western people would call her sorrel.
[IMG]http://i49.tinypic.com/29p849d.jpg)
This is my gelding in summer.
[IMG]http://i45.tinypic.com/30hreon.jpg)
In summer after being on pasture board for a month and a half,
http://i50.tinypic.com/124cveu.jpg
And my gelding in winter.
http://i45.tinypic.com/2ibhwsn.jpg
I’ve always called him bay… thoughts?
Like I said, PetDNA is currently the ONLY one testing for brown right now.
As for the horses I posted being tested, well, I have no clue. You didn’t ask that. You asked what I called brown and what I called sooty bay. It could also be semantics. What I call sooty bay, you call brown. What you call brown I call sooty bay because you can see the sooty factor on the horse. It behaves fairly the same starting along the topline and drifting down. Same goes with sooty palominos, sooty buckskins, etc. Also called ‘smutty’. AFAIK, there isn’t a test for ‘sooty or smutty factor’. But I don’t know…haven’t been over to UC Davis’ website lately.
no test for sooty/smutty, you’re right. Like I said, based on what I’ve been studying on known brown horses, 1 of the “sooty bay” ones you posted is likely brown, 1 is iffy, one is likely bay.
You are saying horses with beige undertones are brown and not bay and that’s just not correct all of the time.
How do you know if you haven’t seen those horses tested to be brown or not?
Bays come in a variety of shades. My own bay mare has a beige belly. She’s a wild bay, but a bay nonetheless. Nothing brown about her.
Picture?
Bays can be anywhere from vibrant blood bays, to subdued bays that could be argued to be buckskins but are not.
Agreed :yes:
So, if I wanted to test my gelding to see if he is actually a fading black or something else (he’s registered with the app club as “Dark Bay or Brown”, had to change his papers as a yearling when he was originally registered as a foal as Grulla), where could I get that done, how easy is it (as simple as pulling mane hair for DNA?) and for how much money?
Because I own one, that’s why. I’ll have to get some pics of her beige belly for you I suppose (can’t find any on the PC right now) And likewise, how would YOU know the difference in a bay and brown without a test?? Seriously, we’re going in circles. We’ll just have to agree to disagree.
Here’s pics. And for what it’s worth, both of these photos were taken on the same day, with the same camera within a 5 minute time frame. So, photos can be deceiving with color. These are in the summer time. She’s much different in the winter. She’s a wild bay, noted by the partial black on the legs. She has countershading down the back, a black beauty mark in front of one ear, sooty factor on the shoulders in the winter.
http://www.tristanbaker.net/eBay/wildbay.jpg
http://www.tristanbaker.net/eBay/kid4.jpg
One rather interesting factoid in all this is that the color sorrel is used in the very early TB studbooks. IIRC, chestnut is not.
http://www.petdnaservicesaz.com/ is where you’d want to send hair samples to test his Agouti status.
If it comes back:
You already know he’s black-based so you don’t need to know whether he’s Ee or EE for this.
[quote=jaimebaker;4515402]Because I own one, that’s why. I’ll have to get some pics of her beige belly for you I suppose (can’t find any on the PC right now) And likewise, how would YOU know the difference in a bay and brown without a test?? Seriously, we’re going in circles. We’ll just have to agree to disagree.
[/quote]
Some horses are VERY obvious one way or another. Some are not. That’s my point. But some of the ones that you think are sooty bay are, to me, obviously brown. We DON’T know without a test, which is why I’ve posted ones I know are tested who look like ones you think are sooty bay
Here’s pics. And for what it’s worth, both of these photos were taken on the same day, with the same camera within a 5 minute time frame. So, photos can be deceiving with color. These are in the summer time. She’s much different in the winter. She’s a wild bay, noted by the partial black on the legs. She has countershading down the back, a black beauty mark in front of one ear, sooty factor on the shoulders in the winter.
http://www.tristanbaker.net/eBay/wildbay.jpg
http://www.tristanbaker.net/eBay/kid4.jpg
She’s obviously bay, and I wouldn’t even begin to call her wild bay - she’s got much too much black on her legs. May I ask why you think she’s wild bay?
As for the beige thing - she isn’t what I was talking about. Pangare does put the beigeness to the belly/flanks/armpits, but it doesn’t take away the fact that her body has a very red undertone to it. That’s what I mean. Browns have a golden/yellow/beigey- undertone to the body color.
[quote=vineyridge;4515426]One rather interesting factoid in all this is that the color sorrel is used in the very early TB studbooks. IIRC, chestnut is not.
[/quote]
Interesting! How far back? Do you have an example?
Whaddaya think…brown or bay?
summer
http://i202.photobucket.com/albums/aa243/caburke/imagew2.jpg?t=1259081748
fall (winter coat coming in)
http://i202.photobucket.com/albums/aa243/caburke/imagew3.jpg?t=1259081819
IMHO, definitely brown. Pretty classic seal brown actually
TheJenners:
It was I who said my horse was chestnut and not sorrel in my QH.
I had a former friend who was a dyed in the wool QH person, and she was very fussy, rabid about “what color a horse was” and I was chastised like a 5 yr old child if I referred to a horse that was the incorrect color. Regardless of breed.
I didn’t want to step on anybody’s toes by incorrectly referring to my horse as the wrong color when it comes to the color of red in a horse. Yeah, that chick was nutty on color, she HATES red horses btw. To me, who cares what color they are. Can’t ride a color.
With that said, my QH was chestnut according to the “laws” of the AQHA. Not sorrel. He had a mixed mane and tail. My arab is chestnut, and, arabs only come in bay, black, and chestnut, and a grey has a base coat of one of those three colors, but grey is considered a color. (Have had arabs since the mid 80’s). This chick used to say the AHA was wrong and that my horse was sorrel not chestnut. AHA doesn’t recognize sorrel, but chestnut. And there are so many varying shades of chestnut too. Not all breeds believe in the AQHA way. I think TB’s have chestnut, not sorrel? I am sure there are other breeds who have chestnut and not sorrel in their color charts.
Nevertheless I don’t hang with her anymore. Whew. OF course she is very passionate about the duns, roans, etc. And they have to be just so also. If they are not one of those popular colors then - hmph!
BTW any horse that is red is considered by me as chestnut. I don’t care what any registry says, I guess that is because I have had arabs for so long. Hey red is red and there are varying shades of it. I love red. But then again, I like all colors of horses. But I like the horse that rides the best and has the best attitude, so who cares on color.
[QUOTE=JB;4515647]
http://www.petdnaservicesaz.com/ is where you’d want to send hair samples to test his Agouti status. [/QUOTE]
From the website:
Effective June 1, 2009, PDSAz has discontinued DNA testing of horses
(except the test for seal brown At).
Doesn’t this mean, you can no longer ask them to test for black? They now only do seal brown, right? No bay, chestnut, black, etc.
[QUOTE=JB;4514633]
Except that’s not correct
Genetically brown horses can and do have black points, though it’s not a requirement.
The old “if there are black points it’s a bay” addage originated lonnnng before there was a test to show the genetic difference.
Brown is a LOT more common than many people think, and you can see that once you realize the difference :)[/QUOTE]
I guess I’ve always considered color to be more of a phenotype than a genotype thing. Just doesn’t seem feasible for most folks to be able to genetically test their horses to make sure they’re actually brown vs. bay. And as for the adage being really old, it can’t be that old! I’m only 23… :winkgrin:
It’s definitely interesting to hear about the genetics behind it, though. Have registries changed their guidelines based on the new genetic info? Or are they still considering brown to be a horse without black points? I feel like if I walked into a barn as a new graduate and started calling (traditionally dark bay) horses brown, clients might think I was an idiot!
Yep, correct. Well, they only test for brown. I think “seal” is used by most folks for the darker browns, so I’m not sure why they say they only test for “seal brown” shrug
LOL! And for most people it really doesn’t matter. But for those who are really interested in the genetics behind the…phenetics? LOL it matters
It’s definitely interesting to hear about the genetics behind it, though. Have registries changed their guidelines based on the new genetic info? Or are they still considering brown to be a horse without black points? I feel like if I walked into a barn as a new graduate and started calling (traditionally dark bay) horses brown, clients might think I was an idiot!
There are indeed some registries that have always (or at least for a while) had “brown” as a color choice. I don’t know how they determined brown from bay. I do know that the JC will take ANY non-black hair on a black horse as an excuse to call him brown (when he’s genetically black). Registries are really all about phenotype unless you can prove otherwise with a test (with some exceptions).
So by now you’ve probably heard this explanation as to the difference between what defines “Chestnut” and “Sorrel”. So being curious myself as I knew they were different but not why, I googled it and read some articles. All of them pretty much said the same thing and here’s what I gathered. Genetically they are the same. “Sorrel” is a true red no appearance of black or brownish tints in the body, whilst “Chestnut” is like a sorrel but it is a more brownish red or has black like on the end of the nose. Chestnuts are usually darker. The only main difference is Sorrel is just red, and Chestnut is red with brown or black tints somewhere on the body.
OK, to muddy the waters even further… breed/region definitely make a difference.
As a child, in my region of the UK a strong, rusty red coat was sorrel, lighter red/orange coats were chestnuts, liver was a dark red/brown shade. Mane and tail could be dark, black even in a chestnut but if legs were also black it was a bay. Sorrel is not a coat colour used by any British breed stud book, as far as I’m aware, and it is not a colour term used today, now that everyone is trained the same way by the BHS etc. However, the Suffolk (Punch) horse is always and only C.H.E.S.N.U.T. with no ‘T’ in it. A friend campaigned to have that spelling restored to the Oxford English Dictionary because all early TBs were spelled that way.
The genetic information has certainly opened up a whole new field of interest but I believe that the UK herd has far less diversity than the US due to centuries of selective breeding and the preference for “hard” colours.
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