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Brindle

3K views 12 replies 10 participants last post by  Indyhorse 
#1 ·
Not too sure if this is the right place to post this but I'll give it a go. I just finished reading a book by Sarah Gruen, "Riding Lessons". (If you haven't read it, it's great - really enjoyed it). Question though? The main equine characters in the book had brindled coats. I've been around horses for what I'd consider quite a long time, but this is the first time that I guess I realized that this was a possibility. Can anyone tell me more about this? I've always thought dogs were the only lucky ones that could have this coat variation, but perhaps I was wrong?

I'd sincerely love to know more. If anyone breeds or knows more about bridle colored coats, I'm interested. :)
 
#2 ·
it is possble in horses, though rare. Maybe some of the more "genetically informed" members on here can tell you more. In the meantime, here's some pics/more info on/about brindled horses! (almost halfway down the page)
Brindle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
#3 ·
#4 · (Edited)
Sorry for the double, but here's a link to the article I remembered seeing about the link between brindle and chimerism.

http://instructor.mstc.edu/instructor/MKundinger/oneinamillion.pdf

To me, breeding chimeric horses, especially to each other, seems like a bad idea - way too many seperate dna strands floating around, not to mention the great increase of a foal being hermaphoditic, either internally or externally.

It DOES say in the article, that most chimeras are brindle, but not all brindle horses are chimera.
 
#13 ·
Gidji yes, you are basically right. Chimerism is when there are twin foals developing in utero fuse, very early on in the zygote phase. It's specifically caused by non-identical twins, as in the result of the mare releasing and having fertilize two eggs, as opposed to a single egg splitting, which created identical twins. It results with a single horse having two complete and separate strands of DNA. The chimeric horse can have 2 sets of the same sex DNA, or 2 opposite sex DNA (as in the case of the stallion, Dunbar's Gold, in the article I posted, who had both a full male strand of DNA as well as a full female strand of DNA, however the horse itself was physically a stallion. The brindle mare in the article Dunbar's Gold was bred two, Sharp One, had two complete and separate strands as well, however both were female.) Chimerism can wreak havoc with DNA typing in breeding horses and their get, if you don't know they are chimeric - it's how the link was discovered in the first place.
 
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