Horse Color Genetics: Identifying Crop-Out Paints

Review: TO=tobiano, O=frame overo, SB1=sabino

One thing that confuses and frustrates a lot of non-geneticists is when they breed two paints together and the resulting baby is completely solid, no interesting pattern at all. But the one combination that totally doesn't make sense to a lot of people is when they breed two non-paints and the baby is paint. How do you explain this, and why does it happen?

As a side note, before I begin, I use paint and pinto interchangeably. In genetics, there is no difference, it is a patterned horse with pattern genes. Some people get into crazy arguements about which is correct, but there is no difference. If you are speaking about which is a breed, then generally Paint is a breed, whereas pinto is a color.

It's important to understand that pinto-patterned horses come in a lot of different varieties. Some are crazily patterned....

Some have only a minimal pattern, but are still obviously paint (well, the one below isn't super obvious, but you get the idea)....

And some don't look paint at all!

I know, you may be gasping, but I'm guessing both of the above horses carry some sort of paint gene. How do I know? And why aren't they as flashy as other paints?

Similar to other markings, all various genes are inherited from the parents. Paints don't just happen, they had to get them from somewhere. 

The horses above are what you might call a 'crop-out' paint. Crop-outs are born from a pinto-patterned horse, but to the disappointment of the owners, they turned out solid. But the difference between a crop-out paint and a solid horse is that a crop-out paint actually DOES have a paint gene in there, the owner just may or may not know it. It takes a little knowledge and practice to be able to identify a crop-out.

In pinto patterns, all paints carry a certain amount of expressing or suppressing gene. Because all horses start out as a base color (chestnut, bay, black), white is added in. Fully expressed pinto horses have more white; some are so white they almost don't look pinto, like the foal below (notice his ears).

While most paints have a more even balance of both, like the horse below

It does seem like there are a lot of paint horses out there, I personally think there are a lot more crop-out paints than most people would think. The horse below is what some people may or may not recognize as a crop-out paint.

So now, the big question: how do I tell a crop-out pinto from a horse who simply didn't didn't inherit any paint genes? 

A minimally-marked pinto will look, well, like the horse above. Tall white stockings are an indicator of pinto, and also the marking sometimes called, 'bald face', where the face is quite white.

Besides double-dilute horses (cremello, perlino, and smoky white), blue eyes are ALWAYS an indicator of pinto. The horse below has no white markings on her legs, but her face marking is rather large. Even though it doesn't cross over her eyes, it is large enough to mark her as a paint. Plus the blue eyes.

The horses below are very unusual; they doesn't have any particular face marking, but their eyes are blue. It's in there somewhere!

Going back to the stockings, some crop-out paints don't have particularly tall stockings. This is one of the horses I posted earlier:

He is super cool. While I can't be positive about his pinto status, what makes me guess that he is a pinto is because of the way that back left stocking has that jagged edge. Very jagged edges on leg markings, whether tall or short, can give you a clue. I don't know whether this is a hard and fast rule or not. And like I said, I'm not very sure on the above horse.

So, back to the very first question: how does a paint produce a solid horse, and a solid horse produce a paint?

They are actually very different questions. The first question, how does a paint produce a solid horse, is not too hard to answer. Just like other genes, unless more is known about the horse, it is safe to assume that there is a 50% chance of the foal inheriting it. If the foal is born solid, then you need to ask yourself whether they are crop-outs, or whether they actually didn't inherit any pinto gene at all. 

The thing about crop-out pinto horses is that they ARE pintos with pass-alongable pinto genes, just not easily recognizable. One problem with the APHA (American Paint Horse Association) is that they don't admit that crop-outs have pinto patterns, and are then labeled as 'solid breeding stock'. But crop-outs can still produce colored babies, unlike true solid-colored horses. While they can still be registered just as any other paint, they are less desirable.

Back to the other question: how can a solid horse produce a paint? Now that you are more informed, you know the answer: that pinto pattern didn't come from nowhere. One of the parents is a crop-out, who is actually not solid.

Going back to the expressed/suppressed pinto genes, that will have to be another post! I'm having a hard time understanding myself how a supressed pinto gene can be hidden for many generations, and then all of a sudden the suppressed gene is turned off and you have a pinto foal.

Horse Color Genetics: Bloody Shoulder Marking

Review: E=black, A=bay, G=gray.

I know a 'bloody shoulder' marking may sound very violent and gory, but trust me. It's not.

A bloody shoulder marking is actually the exact same thing as a somatic mutation, but with a gray horse. In a gray horse's somatic mutation, the gray gene gets switched off in a certain area, leaving it colorful. 

While the name bloody shoulder may seem a bit obvious as to the location of the mutation, bloody shoulder markings can happen anywhere on the body. The horse below has it on his face.

Here is a Bedouin legend about the bloody-shoulder mare: http://www.babsonarabians.com/Readers_Corner/Legend.htm

Horse Color Genetics: Rabicano

To Review: E=black, A=bay, C=cream, Rn=roan

The color rabicano is often confused with the modifier roan, but they are actually very different. Rabicano is a gene that causes roaning in a small area of the body, restricting the roaning section to just around the flanks.

The above horse has minimal rabicano, but the tail sort of gives it away.

Interestingly, rabicano horses usually have very peculiar tails. They are sometimes called 'skunk' or 'coon' tails. The pictures are sort of self-explanatory. The word rabicano is Spanish, 'rabo' meaning tail and 'cano' meaning white. Thus, 'white tail'. 

Horse Color Genetics: Graying Out

Review: E=black, A=bay, G=gray, LP=leopard complex, Rn=roan

I know I've talked a little bit about gray in the past, but I thought I would bring it up again after some interesting Facebook genetics topics. Several people on that forum have asked whether their foal will gray out. If one parent is gray, then there is a 50/50 chance of graying out. The main question is: how do I know if my foal will go gray eventually?

When foals are first born, sometimes there is no way to tell. Here are a couple signs that they will gray out.

Some foals will have 'goggles'. This is a fairly certain way of knowing. The little guys below have goggles.

Some foals are born with little white flecks already in their coat; I don't know if I'll be able to find any good pictures of this.

I just learned that black foals who are born jet black usually gray out, while a black foal who will stay black is sort of a mousy grayish color. Compare the black foal above, who will gray out but is very black, to the sort of dingy color of the black below.

Foal coat colors are often misleading. When they are born, that super-soft coat will often shed out to be a different shade than what they were born with. One lady I knew had a bay tobiano filly that she had really wanted to be black. She shaved her after she was a few weeks old and was disappointed to learn that she wasn't actually black underneath, but a slightly darker shade of bay. I believe most foals shed out to be a richer color than they were born with, but remember! Pinto foal's coat patterns never change, even though the base color will a little.

Here is a stumper:

I knew a mare that looked like this once, and at the time, I had no clue. But now I know better.

The horse above WAS a paint (he still carries that gene), but the color is covered up by gray. You can still see the lines where the markings are. Some will develop flea-bites (the marking, not the actual thing) in the colored areas, like the horse below. 

I don't know why, but of all the grayed-out paints I've seen, all of them seem to have a bit of a bluish tint to the color areas. Especially in the first one.

Horse Color Genetics: Paint Combinations

One thing that has popped into my head recently is how many different combinations of colors can you have without the horse exploding? There isn't a right or wrong answer to this question; most patterns will collide and make a crazy horse, like the one below. 

That is any pinto pattern, + appaloosa. It is fairly rare, not because it's hard to get, but because horse's in the pinto registry aren't allowed to have any appaloosa relatives, and vice versa. It is more common in miniature horses because both colors are allowed. 

Isn't he gorgeous? Black roan + tobiano. 

The above horse is seal bay + roan + tobiano.

This horse is champagne + tobiano.

Obviously, there are many others, but I chose these because I thought they were particularly pretty.