been absent

We decided to start looking at new horses for sale so I may be absent due to a new horse.

update

Sorry it's been a while! its been busy here. We lost bella my horse due to the cancer. We had to surrender her to our vet so she could get another massive surgery. Its been real hard. But I just bought a new resin that will keep me busy. I started customizing and am working on a few pastel pieces. I'm not sure how that will end but I'll find out soon enough. I am also making a fine harness that will hopefully be shown at NAN!

New harness

My newest project is a fine show harness for the Peter stone saddlebred and four wheel cart.  This is for my personal collection.  The cart was a gift.  All that is in the picture is from a full days work

Boots!

For boots I will be covering sport boots, bell boots, open front boots, and ankle boots!

For sport boots you want it just under the knee and cupping the fetlock joint

For the Velcro you want the Velcro to go behind the tendon area. And then there is the fetlock strap that goes under the fetlock and fastens in the front

For bell boots you always want the velcrow pointing away from the horse

For open front boots you want cupping the fetlock and pull the elastic snug

These boots far for if the horse's hind legs hit the front while jumping and also protect against brushing (see rubs in above picture)

The fetlock boots are the same reason.  

Boots will make your performance entry complete but use the proper boots!

Thoroughbred colors part 3

Sabino (or sabino overo) is a pinto pattern that is extremely common in Thoroughbreds. It is a pattern of white hairs imposed on any coat color that ranges in expression from minimal to maximal. In its most minimal form, it is often manifested as simply a blaze and stockings. More boldly marked sabinos will have white splashes on their bellies and sides, often with roany edges, and the most extremely marked sabinos can be all white or nearly so. Marquetry, pictured below left, is an excellent example of the moderate form of this pattern. as are Northern Dancer and many of his descendants. Note the left hind stocking which seems to come to a point as it rises up Marquetry's leg---this is very typical of the sabino pattern. Also notice the odd white spot on his left knee. Sabinos tend to have odd spots like this one on their bellies as well. The sabino pattern tends to be more loudly expressed on chestnut and chestnut-based colors like palomino.

The sire Northern Dancer is an excellent example of a typical minimally marked sabino. .

The stallion Marquetry is also a fairly minimally marked sabino. Note the odd spot on his left front knee and his blaze that extends on to his chin, both typical sabino indicators.(Photo by Tony Leonard)

Dominant White is a pattern that was for a long time thought to be part of the sabino gene complex. Like sabino, the amount of white on the coat can vary, though most dominant white horses tend to be heavily patterned or nearly all white. Interestingly, dominant white is frequently found to be the result of a mutation, so loudly marked foals can result from otherwise plain parents. Dominant white is believed to be lethal early in utero in its homozygous state. Recent genetic testing has shown that several TB families thought to be sabinos are in fact dominant whites. They include Puchilingui (Sato, etc) and White Beauty (Patchen Beauty, The White Fox, Patchen Prince, etc) and probably others like Shirayukihime (dam of Yukichan and 3 other white horses), Turf Club, Our White Lady, etc.

Phenotypically, sabinos and dominant whites are essentially indistinguishable. Genetic testing is required to prove which a horse is.

This horse is the late Puchingui, sire of many modern dominant white TBs. (Photo by Dan Trout)

This is The White Fox, an extreme sabino son of Patchen Beauty. His first four dams tail-female are white extreme sabinos. 

The frame overo pattern does exist in the Thoroughbred gene pool, but it is limited to only a handful of family lines. The only frame overo TBs cropped up in the last 20 years. All are from relatively obscure lines, and the presence of the pattern may be due to a random mutation. In TBs, frame is almost always seen in conjunction with the sabino pattern which makes for some spectacularly patterned horses. Horses carrying only the overo gene almost always have four dark legs. White legs on a horse also carrying frame overo usually indicates sabino at work. The splash white overo pattern has only recently been recognized in the Thoroughbred. Though there have been a few isolated reports of potential splash whites, no good examples were found until a mare named Hey What The in New Zealand produced two unique fillies in 2003 and 2004. As with the frame pattern, the origins of splash in TBs are mysterious. In heterozygous form, splash can be very minimal, as little as a small snip on the nose, so it likely has flown under the radar for so long because of this. Seeing Spots: Birdcatcher Spots, Chubari Spots (aka Tetrarch Spots), Bend Or Spots, and Manchado These odd patterns of dark and light spots do occur in other breeds, but they seem to be particularly prolific in the Throughbred, which is why most of them are named after TBs. The genes responsible for these spots have not yet been identified, so not a great deal is known about them. They are, however, entirely seperate from the genes responsible for Appaloosa coloration. Birdcatcher spots or ticks are patterns of small white spots on a dark coat. Usually, these spots appear once a horse has reached maturity and eventually disappear. Sometimes, however, they do seem to be permanent. This is Willspynow, a 1991 mare by Well Selected out of Spy Gail, by Father Hogan. This mare's spots are bigger and more highly concentrated than most Birdcatcher spots. (Photo by Barbara Livingston) Chubari spots (also sometimes called Tetrarch spots) are similar to Birdcatcher spots except that they tend to be much larger. They are usually egg-shaped and egg-sized, as seen here on The Tetrarch. They seem to be tied to the grey color, but they are different from dapples. Dapples can change and fade as the horse ages, but chubari spots don't disappear until the horse has completely greyed out. Many grey TBs have a few chubari spots but it is unsual to see a horse with as many as The Tetrarch. Bend Or spots are random dark spots on a horse's coat. Man O' War, a descendant of Bend Or, is said to have had these spots. Pictured is Commendable, the 2000 Belmont winner, who has a Bend Or spot on his right hip. Bend Or spots seem to show up most frequently on chestnuts and chestnut-based colors, like palomino, but they can occur on other colors. (Photo by ?) This is GP's Krugerrand, a palomino TB who is covered in Bend Or spots.  This pattern is known as manchado or "manchado overo." It has only cropped up in Argentina in a handful of horses from various breeds (Criollo, Hackney, Arab, and TB so far). Because it is only found in Argentina and it has not proven to be hereditable, it may be the result of environmental factors rather than genetic ones. There is also some thought that it may be an exceedingly rare recessive gene. The pattern is not known to be related to other spotting patterns like the appaloosa pattern or Bend Or spots. The horse pictured is a Thoroughbred,Royal Manchado, a 1990 stallion by Royal Castle (ARG) out of Kleymary (ARG), by Manchester (ARG). All information and pictures are taken from   www.whitehorseproductions.com

Thoroughbred colors part 2

Roan does not exist

*The Catch A Bird Exception: The only exception to the statement that there are no true, dark-headed roan TBs has cropped up very recently. In 1982, a very unusually marked Thoroughbred was born in Australia named Catch A Bird. He looks like a bay horse with white brindling, the opposite of the dark lines seen on "normal" brindles. Stranger still, as a stallion, Catch A Bird has produced four offspring that appear to be true, dark-headed roans, indicating that Catch A Bird carries a one-time genetic mutation that has produced roan. As far as I know, none of the 4 "roan" foals, Odd Colours (1992 mare), Slip Catch (1993 mare), Goldhill Park (1994 horse), and Red Noble (1996 gelding), have been tested to see if they carry the roan gene, but they certainly exhibit the typical roan phenotype. Interestingly, Slip Catch has produced two roan foals, Lavender Fields and Pink Flloyd.Slip Catch and her foals were rescued by Winning Colors Farm in Australia where their rare color is being preserved and promoted. 

Pictured is Catch A Bird, who looks like a brindle, except with white striping instead of dark striping. With regular brindles, the dark stripes are caused by the sooty hairs in the coat being arranged into lines, rather than being randomly scattered. Catch A Bird's color was most likely the result of skewed rabicano caused by a one-time mutation. Because CAB's color was the result of a mutation, it was not hereditable. But because of the close genetic relationship of several white patterns, including rabicano and roan, the mutation manifested itself in the ability to pass on a variation of roan to his offspring which has proved hereritable.

Long story short, true roan is a new mutation in the Thoroughbred gene pool

Slip catch as a foal

Odd Colours as a foal. Notice her dark head and points, typical of a true roan.

Grey

Young

Mid age

Old

Some greys retain odd patches of color known as "bloody shoulder marks" though the marks can occur on the neck, barrel, and elsewhere as well.  Pictured below (top) is Colorful Tour winning the 2003 Essex Stakes. He is a chestnutrabicano, a pattern that is often confused with true dark-headed roan. The rabicano gene, however, is entirely seperate from the roan gene, though it does create a pattern of white hairs that is similar to roan. It is usually manifested as a sprinkling of white hairs radiating out from the horses flank. Rabicanos also have a white-topped tail, known as a coon tail or skunk tail. Other notable rabicano TBs are Cox's Ridge, his dam Our Martha, and Carrier Pigeon. There is some thought that rabicano may be tied to the sabino gene.

Colorful Tour, exhibiting the rabicano pattern. Note the white hairs on his flank and the top of his tail.

This is Skunktail, a bay rabicano, showing off a bold skunk tail that earned him his name. Not all rabicanos have this much white on their tails. He appears to be a sabino as well.

Thoroughbred colors

In this post I will cover thoroughbred coat colors. 

Black, chestnut, bay, and brown are all common

Black

Chestnut

Brown

Bay

They also come in palomino, cremello, perlino, buckskin, smokey black, and smokey cream

Palamino

Cremello

Perlino

Buckskin

Smokey black

Smokey cream

Next time we will cover patterns!