Thanks you guys. i was hoping he was a grulla dun. (because legbars and dorsal stripe and withers cross markings). Bay-dun-roan…lol. That’s a mouthful!
Grulla dun is black dun, he just has at least on dominant agouti making him bay.
He definitely looks like he has the inverted V Roan legs in that pic!
Grulla wasn’t ever an option he’s very clearly bay-based 
The markings you describe are from Dun (he’s also got the ear tips). The dorsal stripe that (very important) continues into the tail, is a required Dun marking. The other markings are pretty optional, though most have at least a couple of them, even if it’s faint.
nd1 can also cause these markings too
ok…so, you got Sinnerman sqared-away for me. (thank you) How about this one, Avatar, what color is he? He is dappled, but it was also raining a little bit when i fed this morning…so raindrops and dapples.
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I would say he is a bay based dun with a creme dilute aka buckskin with dun factor. Bay + dun + creme. Dunskin or buttermilk buckskin. You’d need a DNA test to be sure, but IME this makes a lighter coat than either bay + dun or bay + creme (buckskin). It is very very pretty.
He also has sunbleaching on his forelock and tip of mane where it’s reddish. The white frosting is from dun factor.
The dapples are an add-on, you can get them in any color.
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I’d want new pics LOL The top pic has a very different saturation than the bottom 2. I could maybe buy into being dunskin in the top pic, but on the bottom 2 he’s grulla
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This one looks like your grulla.
Your first horse has red by his muzzle.
This one is black.
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Funny, but…
i see black on the horse’s nose you say is bay dun roan and i see brown on the one you say is actually the grulla. my eyes are colorblind to black and brown? Is that even possible?
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There is bay dun and then grulla is black dun. I certain see a lot of dunskin horses who are yellow-beige with black points and no red. I tend to think of grulla as being mouse grey without any yellow.
If a horse’s phenotype color was genuinely on the borderline between bay dun/dunskin and grulla, I’d suggest a DNA color test to see if they have the agouti gene which would make them bay based, or not, which would make them black based.
The color genotype can express in some variations of color phenotype, bay can be a range of color from almost black to bright chestnut. Black can be a range from true coal black to a bit dusty rusty. Palominos can range from dark gold to almost cream, buckskin can range from a lighter bay to pale blonde. And all these colors can fade from sun, be lighter in winter, or fade from lack of copper and zinc in the diet or ill health. So the dilute gene whether dun, creme, champagne, is modifying an existing cost color that can vary too. When you get two modifiers you get added change.
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I had a sorrel sabino Paint gelding. I had him tested at Davis 20 years ago and he came back as a sorrel overo. That was in the olden days when the only 2 recognized patterns were tobiano and overo. So if you horse wasn’t tobiano - which is easy to figure out with your eyeballs - APHA registred him as an overo.
As genetic research into horse colors began to take off, two additional patterns were identified: sabino and spash white. There is a gene - Sb1 - for sabino. But sabino also appears as a pattern without the Sb gene. and it shows up in a few other breeds, inclduing Clydedales and Shires. My APHA-registred sabino does not have the Sb1 gene. He is registered as an overo, foaled in 1994.
I have used both UCD and Etalon. Thre color results were the same,. I like Etalon because they tested for a wider variety of dominant white genes. They have testing for health problems, and can run an ancestry profile. I have not had any problems with their services.
What I have concluded over the years that if you ask someone what color your horse is, they should answer with one of the basic choices: black or red. Then you dive into the details.
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same deal, some pictures make her look grulla, some are too yellow and she looks bay dun.
Agree with Scribbler that all you’d need would be the Agouti test on these, since the only questions are bay-based vs black-based.
This is a good site to see a lot of the color variations, and to see the yellow tones of the dunskin vs grulla
SB1 is an old mutation which is responsible for a lot of the typical white markings around, but the same is true for W20, another very old mutation. For sure, lots of breeds have “normal” white markings but don’t carry SB1 - TBs for example. So it’s not that it’s “sabino also appears…”, it’s that there are lots and lots of white patterns, many currently known (the dominant white W mutations), but most not commercially testable, and it’s a gene (KIT) which mutates a lot, so no doubt there are probably 100s of them by now. SB1 was named SB1 under the assumption there were likely more Sabino mutations, but so far, none have been identified.
they get old, very simple basic tests wrong on a regular basis, including telling someone their TB had Tobiano, that a horse wasn’t HYPP (he was absolutely diseased), and more. They test for white patterns no other genetic company has ever heard of. They aren’t to be trusted at all.
Ancestry testing is a game, nothing more. Shetlands testing as having Hanoverian ancestry means absolutely nothing, other than the 2 breeds shared similar ancestors, which can be said about a LOT of breeds.
The colors are black-base, bay-based, and red-based. Bay dun is the original color, everything else is a mutation. It’s a common, though incorrect notion, that horses are either black-based or red-based, since you’re looking at Extension as the deciding factor, but it’s not quite that way. Bay started out, then black was a mutation, and red was a mutation
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Any guesses on what this young filly will be? She’s pretty ‘moth eaten’ now, but it looks like that color underneath her foal coat is sort of a charcoal color…except on her face, which is chestnut-ish. Not much has been revealed yet…
Her eyes, both of them, have sclera and then pretty liberally applied eyeliner.
her dam
her sire
Bay
Especially if that’s her in the photo with her Momma
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Mmmmm. Well then maybe black.
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PS. I love the myriad of coat colors you share. It’s so beautiful and interesting !!
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with so many colorful ones i should be better educated. I’m going to need some serious help with this foal’s color… She is baffling me. I think she’s going to be a charcoal color. I have one kinda like that only a little darker. (his name is Warlock). Let me show you…
yes, that’s her. So bay huh? it looks so gray-ish.
Here’s mom again, before she foaled her. On a cloudy day…so more realistic color.
First foal coat is often a bit subdued.
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