Since there are many color experts on here and I’m far from one…I’ll throw this out here for feedback.
I’ve a registered bay tobiano paint mare (tri color with black). What color would I get if bred to a:
Black?
Bay?
Grey?
Chestnut?
She’s had foals previously and they all were spotted.
Thank you!
Her pedigree:
sire: Pocos Smooth N Bouncy (Homozygous B&W)
dam: Shifty Shirley, by Shoot Yeah (QH, no description given)
I hate to say this but…
Yes (for all; pending stallion color)
with a 50/50 chance of tobiano
So the mare is bay. We don’t know if she’s homozygous for black (EE) or homozogyous for Agouti (AA). We know she’s at least hetero for both, so she’s E?A?. If she’s bay (as opposed to brown), we also don’t know if she’s AA, Aa, or AAt.
When bred to the following, given the unknowns:
Black (E?aa) - you can get black, bay or brown, or chestnut
Bay (E?A?) - you can get black, bay or brown, or chestnut
Chestnut (ee??) - you can get black, bay or brown, or chestnut
Grey - this is an overlay to a color, so see the other colors for outcomes. If this gray is Gg, 50% chance of gray. If GG, all foals will turn gray
Given the mare’s dam of QH, the mare is hetero Tobiano, so 50% chance of tobiano.
Here is her photo (the day she arrived and had just stepped off the trailer -
I definitely want a pinto foal, just wanting to know color outcomes.
Oh she’s definitely brown - very dark seal brown. Her muzzle is a dead giveaway.
Yes! So…tell me…foal color?
Well, black x brown at least can’t give you bay 
But you can still get black, brown, or chestnut, so it’s really not much help LOL
However - given how dark she is, it’s all but guaranteed she’s Ata, which means you have a 50/50 chance at black IF either parent is EE (homozygous for black).
If they are Eeaa (the black sire) and EeAta (the mare), then:
25% chance chestnut
37.5% black
37.5% brown (and would be the dark brown like the mare, though not necessarily as dark)
Then divide each of those in half for the equivalent Tobiano color, and divide in half again for the 50% chance of a gray (unless of course the gray mare is homozygous gray, then they’re all gray)
Thanks JB!! I appreciate it! 
If you REALLY want/need a spotty baby, you’d have to breed to a homozygous tobiano stallion. With a QH parent, she herself is NOT homozygous, so all the spotty babies she has had are just the toss of the dice. Sometimes I think that the more spots a mare/stallion has produced in the past, the LESS likely I am to get them, since someone has to balance out the 50/50 split! But that too is a flawed assumption statistically. Each and every foal has a 50/50 chance of having spots, even if the prior 10 foals were all spotted or spotless!
I’ll take my chances JoZ. She’s thrown color so far with her foals so I’m crossing my fingers!
Do you have pictures of her foals?
“Spotted” doesn’t necessarily mean Tobiano. The mare herself likely has another spotting pattern in addition to Tobi. What breed is she? I really do wonder if she’s a Frame carrier, with the jaggedness of her body spots, and how low her front leg white is.
Assuming she’s more then just hetero for Tobi, the chances of some sort of spotting pattern increases above 50% with each breeding. If she has 2 patterns, there’s a 75% chance at least one of them will pass.
Yes! Oldenburg colt by Saint Sandro and a pony foal by Cold Play.
Ok, so they are most definitely Tobiano and most definitely from her. The SS colt is also interesting to me in his really low RF leg white. I would test your mare for Frame. There are a few Warmbloods or “warmbloods”, as well as TB lines who carry Frame, and especially if you were to ever breed her to a QH or Paint you’d definitely want to know if she’s a carrier so you can avoid any untested or nO stallion.
I’ll only be breeding her to solids, no worries but I’m glad you told me. Thanks again JB!!
PS - I’m breeding her to a black welsh this year!
Solids don’t eliminate the issue But, afaik, Welshies don’t have Frame, so you’re good
How about getting a liver chestnut?
I have a black mare that I am getting ready to breed and of course all other qualities will be considered first. But, what color would I have to breed to get a liver chestnut? Just curious.
If the mare is EE, you can’t ever get chestnut, much less Liver.
If she’s Ee, then for the best odds, you need a liver chestnut stallion. Liver is thought to be some sort of homozygous recessive, so really the BEST chance is to breed liver to liver. Even that doesn’t guarantee liver, though it’s the most reliable option. That means it’s more than just homozygous recessive, as there must be more to it than that, with one theory being sooty somehow.
Do you know the mare’s parents’ colors? If either was chestnut, but not liver, your odds of producing liver are really low.
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