Gold spot on shoulder?
 

Stiffler, my best friend's QH, has developed a strange gold spot on his shoulder. He has had no injuries to this area, and the spot was not there over the winter, nor do I remember him having it last year. He hasn't gotten a rubbed spot in that area, the skin seems normal, the mis-colored coat there is healthy and shiny. I can't quite figure out where this has come from. We have not applied any mtg or anything that could accelerate sun bleaching or anything on him. He just has a randomly gold shoulder. Note, the area very specifically is gold, not white or cream hairs like a scar. He also appears to have a second goldish area starting to show through below the first one.

He is registered as a bay, though I don't believe that is accurate for him (guessing probably brown?). He is out of a palomino stallion and a dun mare.

Picture of shoulder spot:

http://i413.photobucket.com/albums/p...r/IMG_0330.jpg


Otherwise a solidly marked horse, nothing unusual about his coat/color:


http://i413.photobucket.com/albums/p...r/IMG_0329.jpg

http://i413.photobucket.com/albums/p...r/IMG_0327.jpg


Picture of Stiffler coming out of his winter coat just a few months ago - clearly no spot:

http://i413.photobucket.com/albums/p...r/IMG_3856.jpg


Anyone seen anything like this before or know what it is? I'm hesitant to just dismiss it in case it's some kind of indication that something is wrong. But I hardly want to call the vet out just for some funny colored hair, too, in case it's just something not unusual, but that I just haven't seen before.

I dont know about color genetics but it looks cool!
Maybe call your vet and just ask him about it, my vet doesnt charge for questions on the phone.
If its all healthy then I wouldnt be too worried
Possibly the opposit of a Bend Or spot? (a dark spot developed on a Sorrel or Chesnut horse, sometimes other colors)

It looks to me like exactly what you said - a gold spot. I am not sure but think they are like Bend Ors in that we aren't sure what makes them and that they can appear and disappear :-)

Thats really intresting. I'm subbing cause I'd like to see what people think it is.

http://www.horseforum.com/horse-bree...marking-61705/

Here is another thread about Gold Spots :-)

Huh, how interesting. I have no idea what it is, but Zeiner has something similar. He has a very small patch of mixed bay and golden hairs on his head about the size of a dime. I will try to get a picture but I don't know if it will turn out.

I am familiar with Bend-Or spots. My sorrel mule even has one. lol. I thought that Bend-Or's were traced back to one TB, like the Bird Catcher spots?

Thanks for the link, Chiilaa, it sounds similar, but doesn't really look quite the same. Unfortunately the link Chey had provided in that thread doesn't work any more, and a google search on gold spots just leads me to a horse named Gold Spot lol. I think this is something different, as the horse in that threads OP has had it her whole life, this spot just showed up on Stiffler in the last month or so.

I really don't know what it is. It certainly doesn't bother him in any way, it's just so strange, showing up out of no where. He's mature, he just turned 9 last month. I just wondered if there were weird things with the genetics of dilutes (so not familiar with) that might contribute to this, he has a lot of palominos (and duns, actually) in his pedigree.

Here is Stiffler is on Allbreed:

Jc Reys Rukin String Quarter Horse

Hmm. Don't know why his dam side is showing up on Allbreed as incomplete. Here's the rest:

DS:

Wild Cactus Quarter Horse

DD:

Sun Bars Candy Quarter Horse

WHAT the heck??? | Equine Color Genetics

Ok - What is NOT Calico Tobi then?? | Equine Color Genetics

Some interesting ideas in there. As you can see from the pics in the first one, Gold Spots can look very different.

As far as his genetics causing it - it would be chimerism in that case, and would have been there at birth.

My sorrel mare has a Bend-Or spot on her hind quarter, my friends sorrel gelding also has one, and all that I have seen, they are always darker, and more or a less a perfect oval, not jaggidy or faded.

This isn't a Bend Or spot, the only reason I mentioned them was that we don't know the genetic explanation for them either.

Bend Or spots are always darker. Gold Spots are always that - gold. They usually are the perfect palomino colour, no matter the base colour of the horse they appear on. I guess that a Gold Spot on a cremello could be mistaken for a Bend Or spot though :-P