Minimor said:
Leia, Silver Lace's dam, Lucky Hart's Miss Pinky was, I believe, a dilute....actually looks like maybe a double dilute, which means that her daughter Silver Lace would have to carry one creme gene....making her silver buckskin, not silver bay.Here's an old cached page showing Pinky's photo:
Miss Pinky
Oh, yes indeed. Grand-dam is definitely double creme gene so silver buckskin roan it is! Wow! No wonder her head doesn't appear dark- silver buckskins have silvery heads anyway, so where the roaning stops isn't obvious because her head is already almost the same color! That explains the mystery nicely.
studiowvw said:
Ok, I think I understand now:
the silver bay roan has silver points (mane, tail, legs, muzzle)
a black bay has black points
(?)
Well, sort of. A silver bay is a bay horse with
diluted points. The legs do not turn white or silver, just lighter.
A regular bay is red with black points while a black bay is a bay horse with such a dark body color that they look almost black with a little bit of brown or reddish color at the flanks, elbow and around the mouth. Genetically however they are both bay- black bay is simply a different shade of the same color just as a chestnut can be light blonde with a flaxen mane and tail or so dark they look brown.
So to try and lay Lacey's color genetics out as simply as possible (ha!)...
1) Basic color: Black or red?
Fact: Black is dominant.
Fact: Red-based colors like chestnut, strawberry roan, etc. will only happen if there is no copy of the black gene.
Conclusion: Since your mare's sire and dam are both black-based colors but have produced red-based foals (a recessive trait) we know they are each heterozygous for black. Since Lacey is a black-based color she must have gotten at least one. If she got two, one from each parent, she cannot ever produce a red-based foal.
2) Is she black or bay?
Fact: Bays are black-based horses who carry the agouti gene. Agouti is limited in its scope and does not work on the points so they remain black.
Lacey apparently got the agouti gene from her mother, which washed the black base out to bay.
3) Creme or no creme?
Fact: Creme gene on a black horse creates smoky black, on a bay creates buckskin, and on a chestnut makes a palomino.
Fact: Getting two copies of the gene intensifies the effect, creating a cremello from a chestnut base, a perlino from a bay, and a smoky creme from a black.
If Lacey's sire is a smoky black then he carries creme. Her dam is a silver buckskin, which means she also carries creme. Lacey did not get either creme gene so she is only a bay and not a buckskin or perlino.
4) Silver or no silver?
Fact: Silver is hidden by red, meaning a red-based horse (a chestnut or diluted or modified chestnut) will not show that they have the silver gene at all although they can pass it on to their offspring.
Fact: Silver works all over on black-based horses, diluting the points as well as the body.
Lacey got her dam's silver gene which washed her black mane/tail out to a whitish color and dulled her black legs to a dark reddish brown only a little darker than her body. Her palomino and red roan siblings may have also gotten the silver gene but we can't tell by looking at them as red hides silver.
5) Roan or no roan?
Fact: Roan is a coat color modifier that mixes white hairs into the body but not the head or lower legs.
Lacey got the roan gene from her mother, causing her body to look pale during the summer and adding that odd whitish undertone to her winter coat. Her mom has this too but since her silver buckskin coat is already almost white you don't notice it. Roans usually look solid colored as babies as Myrna's horse did so nobody saw it then, either.
So Lacey can pass on black, possibly red, agouti for bays, silver and roan but not creme as she doesn't have it. If she did she'd be a silver buckskin roan like her mother.
studiowvw said:
So what colour stallion should Lacey breed to in order to stack the odds for a blue roan?
She
could produce a blue roan with any other black-based horse but your best chance is with a homozygous blue roan stallion. If he's homozygous for black the foal will be black-based for sure and if he's got roan as well the baby has a 75% or 100% chance of being roan depending on whether the sire is hetero- or homozygous. The less other color genes he has, the less chance the baby will get something other than roan and black! There's already a 50/50 chance with each foal that they will get Lacey's silver in addition to the roan, or silver instead of the roan. It's also 50/50 if the baby will get her agouti and end up a bay roan instead of a blue roan. Good thing silver dapples, bay roans and silver bay roans are all gorgeous! A silver dapple roan (black with silver and roan) would be really unusual.
Leia
