Rock, scissor paper

[Michelle Clarke]

Dianne, lots of good stuff here - thanks! I too agree that the dun may be a cluster, as things can be expressed differently. I belive in donkeys they say the stripes are inherited from the dam, meaning they get her patterns. Having bred Charro to lots of different non-dun mares, I can say that this is not true here. The stripes vary in type, width, amounts, etc, even on full siblings.

We have a palamino gelding here that I KNOW does not have any dun background (the breeding program was started 68 years ago with one stallion and two mares and never any new blood - they are either sorrel or palamino - no other colors). He has the sooty gene and gets dark greyish looking dapples and expressions on his legs. However, he has a clear dorsal that goes down his back and well into his white tail - looks greyish like the sooty marks. I will have to get a shot of it.

We also had a liver chestnut QH gelding come in for training and he was dark dark, but had a clear - not fuzzy - darker stripe that went all the way down his tail. Stupidly, I did not get a picture!

Interesting stuff for sure....

[DianneC]

That brings up something I've been wondering about. It seems that there are two ways that sooty is expressed, or maybe its two different genes??? One is the "almost a dun" markings with countershading. The other is an "all over" darkening. This is kind of like an Isabella palomino versus a dark palomino. I've noticed that Chinook's grulla kids can be really light or really dark. A few have been regular grulla, but in looking at the dams of those foals, they were a bit darker and I figured it came from them. I remember when I first started with Kigers I asked a big breeder how to get the light grullas. He said they seemed to come from the darkest horses.