Colour experts help please!

[amumwithapony]

Seems to be my day for asking questions concerning this little girl LOL.

We own Rhydeffelin Sumach and a link to her pedigree is here
www.elberrystud.co.uk/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/.pond/dinkped.jpg.w560h389.jpg

She is by Aros Music Man and out of Colne Lavander.

She has had 2 foals for us, 1 born palamino and greying out now and 1 born orange, for want of a better word, who now looks strawberry roan, but will probably also grey out.

The mare (Dinky at home) is registered as dark bay on her passport but doesn't have the black points that a bay would have, and although she is brown, she has lighter, almost golden flecks in her winter coat, as well as orange streak through her mane. She also has darker dapply bits, and in certain lights looks like a very, very dark liver chestnut.

While looking at the colours in her pedigree we noticed that she does have a dilute in there (palamino) and we wondered if she could possibly be a dilute black? The stallion we covered her with is Nerwyn Telor who is grey so we presume thats where the babies get their grey gene from, or could mum be a carrier too?

Colour genetics baffles me! LOL. I know the only way to find out 100% is to have her colour tested which we intend to do but would be interested to here anyones elses opinion. I'll probably get baffled but think it may sink in when its a pony we own LOL.

[sarahp]

The only thing I can say for certain is that the foals have got their grey from their sire, it can't be carried unseen, if she had it she would be grey herself.

It looks possible that she could be dilute black, but the only way to tell would be to have her tested.

[amumwithapony]

Thanks for that Sarahp, know you would come to my rescue LOL.

Just moving on then, IF she is tested as positive for being dilute black what does that mean for the colour combinations of any future foals, assuming we cover her with a non grey stallion?

Are we guaranteed to get a dilute foal, or does she need to homosomthing for that to happen? We have always had grey mares and grey stallions so never really had to work anything like that out before as all our babies have been born lovely duns, palaminos and the odd bay, but started greying out within about 4 weeks.

Foal colour is not that important to us, before anyone jumps on me, but we were going to offer this pony for sale within the next few months. However, if it transpires that she is a dilute and we can more or less guarantee a dilute foal we may possibly keep her to be a l/r pony for a season or 2 and see what the market is doing. We have not been able to sell some stunning well bred, confirmationally sound but grey ponies,but bet they would have gone like hot cakes had they been palamino or dun LOL.

We don't breed just to sell though, although ultimately we do need to reduce numbers but hopefully in a year or 2 the market will have picked back up and once we are out of the L/R classes with her Dinky could maybe have a foal for us, unless we have another L/R jockey by then LOL.

[sarahp]

Right. Those homozygous (which just means having two copies of a gene - ANY gene) for dilute will have pink skin and blue eyes, so she must only have one copy herself! So 50% on average of her foals would be dilutes. She could not have a grey foal to a non-grey stallion.

Colourwise I'm in the same position, my lovely current stallion is homozygous for grey so all his foals are grey, but mostly heterozygous for it, and most carry dilute too. I've made sure the next stallion I own does not have either grey or dilute, I'm not keen on breeding double dilutes although adore the one I have - now 24 and retired. It's not that I'm anti-grey myself, but don't want to become a stud of of only greys, and as you say they don't sell as well as non-greys.

Edited to say the young mares are mostly hetero not homzygous for grey - my mistake!

[amumwithapony]

Sarahp, your ponies are stunning in any colour!

I personally love to see a dapple or steel grey and think there is nothing as flash as a pure 'white' sec A, immaculately clean floating round the ring.

But lots of people seem to want anything BUT a grey. To the point they will buy something of lesser quality than a grey, just because its not grey!

Its a fickle old world. But if we all liked the same I'm sure it would be boring!

I'll carry on buying gallon bottles of shampoo's for greys I think LOL, Dinky can be tested and we can make a more informed decision about our plans for her once we get the results back. TBH I think we are just looking for excuses to keep her. We originally bought her when all the Coed mares for sale were being snapped up by a certain woman who will remain nameless as a wife to our homebred colt. We then had him cut and used our senior stallion on her and are very glad we did as the 2 foals she has given us are both stunning.

But now are a bit stuck as we don't want to breed more than 1 or 2 a year, want to use our homebred and foundation mare and really don't know what to do with her. Decisions, decisions, decisions LOL.

[sarahp]

Many thanks, I try! But most important is that they should be good children's ponies and give pleasure.

I have a fair amount of CC blood in my lot, at least some are left and Dinky was lucky you bought her. Found her photo now - looks like a dilute black to me.

[Bows 4 Shows]

aww i love greys and my dream was always to have a nice dapple grey gelding hunter type. I ended up with a ginger tb, black section d and and a dark bay warmblood lol. The closest we got is mums id x she is a dun but changes colour so frequently. One week she is a pale dun the next a chocolatey colour. Will be looking for a lead rein pony for my nephew shortly so am hoping we can go grey then lol x

[amumwithapony]

Well Sarah, if you ever want another 'golden oldie' to add to your little herd we have a lovely old lady that we aren't planning on breeding from again as we are not in the position to keep many more foals if they don't sell. This one is 100% coed coch and a multi medal winning mare, with multi medal winning stock as well.


We would quite happily send her to you to have for a few years before retirement and then she could come home. Only one problem and that she's grey LOL.

We only ended up with Dinky as she was advertised as a L/R pony and the woman who will still remain nameless didnt know she was for sale. As well Dinky, we also have Ros (Churtoncroft Rosinda) who the woman offered an awful lot of money for , but we had her on loan at the time and bought her from my sister for a 'token amount' and have just also bought Elberry Seren Dewr, a 4 year old gelding who was originally sold to the woman as a colt, but she never got round to collecting him for one reason or another and by the time she wanted to, rumours were circulating so we retained him in payment for the 12 months livery bill he had accumulated. So 3 very lucky ponies on our yard.