Haley
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Post by Haley on Jan 12, 2010 15:44:13 GMT -6
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All horse colors are built on only two base colors, black (E) and chestnut (e). Black is dominant to chestnut, and chestnut is thus recessive. That means that a horse carrying 2 black genes (EE) will be (homozygous) black; a horse carrying one black gene and one chestnut gene (Ee) will also be black (but heterozygous); and a horse carrying two chestnut genes (ee) will be chestnut (always homozygous). So if two heterozygous black horses are bred together (Ee +Ee), they have 1 chance in 4 of producing a homozygous black (EE), 2 chances in 4 of producing a heterozygous black (Ee), and 1 chance in 4 of producing a chestnut. Two chestnuts bred together (ee + ee) can only produce chestnut.
There are many different shades of chestnut such as: liver chestnut, golden chestnut, dark golden chestnut, red chestnut, black chestnut, flaxen chestnut, flaxen black chestnut, and flaxen liver chestnut.
Red chestnut Golden chestnut Darker golden chestnut Liver chestnut Black chestnut Flaxen black chestnut Light flaxen chestnut Flaxen liver chestnut
There are also different shades of black. Not all black horses do fade in the sun, and when they do, they can resemble bays and or liver chestnuts.
Non fading black A true black like Lonhro will not show any brown hairs on the muzzle, the telltale sign of the presence of the agouti gene which is discussed on the next page. Faded black
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