Trabag - Manchado Chestnut Arabian

The manchado pattern is not caused by fungal scarring. The horses appear to be born with the pattern, rather than it coming later in life.

Fungal scarring is responsible for this guy:


Turning into this:


Whereas manchado is born that way, and stays that way throughout life. This is Royal Manchado, the TB stallion whom the colour is named for:

The color was not named for Royal Manchado. That was what the color was called in Argentina. The stallion was named for his color, not the other way around.

This color is relatively new to English speakers. Certainly there were Arabian people who were familiar with Trabag from the Wentworth book where she is pictured, but she remained singular as far as anyone knew until a little more than a decade ago. At that time, someone had inquired about "leopard patterned" Hackney on a mailing list for that breed. A friend of mine raised Hackneys, and passed the photo to me. The mare was not an appaloosa at all (though someone not familiar with patterned horses might mistake her for one), but that same strange pattern as Trabag. From there I was put in touch with her breeder. He put me in touch with a man who had published a small book called "Overos Manchado", detailing the cases of this odd pattern in a variety of pure breeds. The author noted that the pattern was found in others, but he did not detail those for fear of having the pattern associated with "impure" blood. (And he was correct - the other examples I have found over the years since have been unregistered Criollos and Polo Ponies.)

I had that book for years, but it was in Portuguese so it was quite a while before I got it translated. I did have the pictures, though - probably the largest collection of examples of the pattern. I mentioned that there was this new pattern to Dr. Sponenberg when we gave a seminar in Kentucky, and his initial response was "the sabinos down there are pretty odd". I assured him these were NOT sabinos. The points of origin for the white are all wrong for that. When he saw the images in the book I had, he agreed it really was something different. He was also able to get the book translated, which was a huge help.

In the period before Sponenberg's latest book was published - which was a few years before mine - we both tried in vain to track down the people connected with the book I had. I tried again before I went to press, since I would have loved to have gotten permission to run some of the photos from it. I had no luck either, so I reproduced the patterns verbatim using illustrations.

So that is the history of the term, at least here in the United States.

No, never even heard of it!
But the only connection Alberta has to Quebec is government and even that is strained... lol
I may have to hit Google!

This horse has been on my local close for several months now. The guy is calling him a "rare" Appy, and not gelding him for that reason alone. I am no expert but that does not look like an Appy and it seems to not be a great candidate for being a stud either. Could this horse have the fungal issue as stated in other posts? More important should I try to politely tell this guy this "color" likely won't be passed to its offspring and get this poor horse gelded? It's really none of my business of course. There are other photos but they did not download so I will need to add them later.

Roseann, that does look fungal to me.

Here are the other photos. I know it's strange but being a bit of a nerd I thought it was way cool to see this ad after reading this thread. When I saw it months ago I thought not an Appy and forgot it.

It looks fungal to me too - and though I'm no expert on the breed and he is in his winter woollies he really doesnt look like a horse you'd want to breed from anyway
This is always my huge concern when people try to breed for colour and throw everything else that matters more out of the window

Hard to say if it's fungal (looks like it) but if his genetics are in question (does not look Appy) I would assume he is grade and that alone is reason for gelding, IMO.
Not to mention he's.... Fugly... LOL