chestnut x chestnut = palomino!?

Hi all :)

This has been bugging me for nearly 3 years....

I had a palomino paint mare...

Her sire is a chestnut paint - his granddam was a black (i'm thinking a smokey black)

Her dam is a solid chestnut thoroughbred.

This is her:



Is it possible for her to have the dilute pally gene through her sire's granddam? Or not...

I don't have photos of either of her parents but I have seen one of her siblings (same sire) who has the same face as her - baldy white with a half blue eye.

At the time of her birth the stud didnt have any palomino stallions...

Thoughts?

She's cute. The only way to be certain would be a test. However, it is not uncommon for colors to be listed wrong on papers. Do you have a pic of the sire? There is no way for cream to skip a generation (that I know of. If it's there, it's expressed.). Expression can vary greatly due to many factors, including sooty... She does look palomino to me which would make me guess that her sire was indeed a palomino, regardless of registration papers unless you have a pic that is definitely a chestnut.

No it isn't possible. Red x red ALWAYS = red. The cream gene does not/cannot hide on a red based horse. There is some fibbing going on somewhere there....

Her breeder is well known and i've never heard anything shady about them. She's also fully registered as is her sire and dam... hense the confusion... she does have chestnut markings on her stomach. One of my friends suggested she is sun bleached but I have a photo of her when she was a foal and she's still a pally in that photo.

Everyone seems to be at a complete loss as to how she turned out the way she did - even the society which she is registered with.

I sadly do not have any photos of her dam and sire and she no longer belongs to me as I sold her 4 weeks ago :( it's just been bugging me ever since I bought her 3 years ago.

She looks palomino to me too... However, we all know that phenotypes can lie to us. Not saying that is the case here, but just throwing it out there because I like to be Devil's Advocate *wicked grin*

Ooooh post the baby photo!

I have had a bay arab that was registered as Grey, he was the product of a chestnut and a grey.

I also have had a smokey buckskin that was the product of a stallion registered as black and a grey mare.

Unless you have seen photos of the parents then it may well be that one of thier papers is wrong

Do you have any pictures of the parents? I wonder if one is a dark palomino but mistaken for a flaxen chestnut?

I don't know much about what lines carry the barlink gene, but that might be what is going on here. If a horse carries only one barlink gene they will look like a normal chestnut, but if they inherit both barlink genes they will look palomino.

Faye - the grey horses you are talking about is a completely different situation. Grey covers everything because its dominant to all other colors. The dilution genes that would come into play with the OP's issue are recessive. Opposite issue. The resulting colors you list are completely possible with those parents, but a chestnutXchestnut typically can only equal chestnut unless there is the barlink gene or someone is misidentified.

I just don't see how the paint association of australia who requires photo id of a horse and in the stallions case - dna - could have gotten his colour wrong...

And his dam is a chestnut thoroughbred so there can't really be a mistake on her side....

This is the little chubba as a foal

Could she be a light flaxen chestnut by any chance? I mean she always looked pally to me but until her I was always a bay/chestnut girl and despised coloured horses.. she rather changed my opinion of that. I really quite like them now lol