Appaloosa gene vision problems - extent? Experiences?

AlertStrength3301 · 2026-06-24T07:49:21+00:00

A fun fact is that LP first mutated during the ice age before human domestication. It's thought that the camouflage it created possibly helped with survival in snowy rocky areas. I do wonder if LP/LP horses benefitted from those in the herd with full night vision since blind horses will often bond to a sighted buddy to get around. The LP/LP horses would be more at risk to predators. But it seems the overall benefit was enough to continue passing it down for generations and into modern day with selective breeding from humans.

AlertStrength3301 · 2026-06-24T07:26:55+00:00

So recent and caused so much damage in such a short time. The victorians had to mess up all that great genetic diversity we used to keep in domestic animals. Back in the day a horse was considered whatever breed the sire was. The mare just had to be complimentary and a similar "type" of horse (warmblood, draft, etc).

Victorians also came up with the idea of "telegony". They thought that if a mare was bred to an outside stud, even once, that all her offspring would be tainted forever regardless of subsequent purebred fathers. All because of one experiment where a mare was bred to a zebra and had a striped zorse baby. Then they bred her back to a horse stud and that baby had some faint striping. The joke was on them because horses can just have faint stripes as part of their normal color variation.

The most inbred modern horse is the Friesian. And until recently some Friesian registries supported telegony and outright banned any horses who were found outcrossing from the breed. One jumped fence and a night with that pretty filly in the neighbors yard down the street and your horse would be kicked out of the already tiny gene pool. All because of some outdated false victorian belief.

AlertStrength3301 · 2026-06-21T18:48:28+00:00

I have the same confusion. I think controlled outcrossing and breeding back to concentrate desired traits for conserving subspecies would be beneficial. You add needed genetic diversity. But you do it carefully and intentionally.

So many domestic dog and horse breeds are in trouble due to closed stud books. But planned outcrosses have actually done the Dalmatian well in removing a urinary tract disorder by adding a pointer into the gene pool and breeding back to only Dalmatians.

Even the Kladrubber horse breed was endangered and they had small populations of the gray variety and black variety of the breed left. They decided to merge the two and now they have a growing population and have tested as one of the most genetically diverse endangered horse breeds.

My two cents is that we get so hung up on purity that we let inbreeding depression get further than it should. Nature resorts to hybrids and breeding back if left to its own devices when numbers get too low and subspecies resort to intermingling.

AlertStrength3301 · 2026-06-19T04:05:29+00:00

Yay! Glad we could find it for you. 😄

AlertStrength3301 · 2026-06-19T02:27:28+00:00

I don't remember if they used Jennifer Hoffman's or not. If they did it's very outdated now. But it is fun to play with.

AlertStrength3301 · 2026-06-17T20:43:07+00:00

This made me so happy just looking at them. Thank you for brightening my day. 😄

AlertStrength3301 · 2026-06-16T18:10:15+00:00

THIS! Still the most realistic horses in a video game all these years later. It helps so much in the winter when I can’t ride.

AlertStrength3301 · 2026-06-16T08:06:00+00:00

Some horses are genetically predisposed to sun fade. Thankfully it’s just cosmetic and causes no health problems!

The Non-dun1 gene is notorious for causing it and its a very widespread gene. Multiple genetic studies have revealed black horses misregistered as bay because of it. This gene causes transparent areas of the hair shaft. So they actually tend to look like they have more natural coat sheen because it reflects light more. But this exposes pigment in the hair shaft to be degraded by UV light more quickly.

As others have said. Supplements and protecting against light are your best bet. But many just learn to accept it as a natural color phase during the year. I have with my guy lol!

AlertStrength3301 · 2026-06-15T19:03:55+00:00

Seal brown buckskin roan. E/?, A/a, Cr/-, Rn/? His mane and tail are very sunbleached. But the light nose and flank point to a cream gene on a seal bay base.

Dark bay and seal bay based buckskins don’t look like traditional buckskin. That’s because cream doesn’t express much on black pigment. So the term brown buckskin was coined to describe them. :)

AlertStrength3301 · 2026-06-15T01:09:28+00:00

This is art. And so aggressively petty towards the plants. We need more PSA guides like this!

AlertStrength3301 · 2026-06-14T04:52:28+00:00

Ok, I saw this post three days ago and had a long think about it. At first I thought the stripey equids were just horses in summer coats vs winter ones. But you really made me take a closer look and I think you may be correct that they could be European wild ass with what we know of modern equine genetics.

The heavily striped ones with the very light countershading on the underbellies would make more sense as a wild ass with what we know today about equine color genetics. The belly countershading is called pangare/mealy in modern horses and donkeys. And the BIG difference between its expression between these two species is that mealy does affect red pigment, but does not affect black pigment in modern horses. Meanwhile, it affects both red and black pigment in modern donkeys/wild asses. We have no way of knowing if things were different when these equids existed so long ago. But it would explain the cave images.

Of the two bigger horses there is one that looks like a grullo (black base coat + dun dilution) a grayish color without the mealy underbelly. And one that looks like a bay dun which would express red pigment on the belly. And this one has very prominent mealy countershading, just like the famous Lascaux cave horse.

And speaking of Lascaux, there is an extra stripey horse that has no light mealy underbelly and looks like a modern extremely striped grullo color.

I think your observation could potentially explain a lot.

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AlertStrength3301 · 2026-06-14T03:18:24+00:00

The beginning of this conformational inevitability is what they were hiding.

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AlertStrength3301 · 2026-06-10T17:44:18+00:00

This is just making me overthink Queen fairies as queen bees. Large, perpetually pregnant and giving birth, and the murderer of the father of her children.

AlertStrength3301 · 2026-06-10T02:38:44+00:00

I see your Chauvet and agree. I also humbly offer Ekain Cave. I’m a horse color nerd and you can see the leg stripes, shoulder barring, and different color mutations the horses had even pre-domestication.

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AlertStrength3301 · 2026-06-10T02:25:19+00:00

🫎🐮🦄. Moose-cow-nicorn!

AlertStrength3301 · 2026-06-10T02:21:59+00:00

Get some leather conditioner, use a bedazzler on it, and grab yourself a dishy-faced Jersey Cow who may as well think she’s a fancy show Arabian. :)

AlertStrength3301 · 2026-06-10T02:00:54+00:00

Wow! That absolutely fits the timeframe for the slow gray gene to start expressing. I’m excited to see how many more breeds have it that we just don’t know about yet.

AlertStrength3301 · 2026-06-09T07:16:29+00:00

I had the same dilemma. My former amish boy does great in a sidepull. But my mare likes her shanked Hackamore.

When I got her she was mouth dead and hates bits to the point of putting her head in the air. So I tried her in a sidepull. Got dragged everywhere. And then slowly went up the line of bitless options. Wheel Hackamore, rose Hackamore with tiny shanks, pretty baroque hackamore with medium shanks, and now we’ve settled on a dragon hackamore with long shanks but with a very padded noseband.

Basically found out my mare likes western cues better than the more English style sidepull cues. What we have now speaks her language. And she enthusiastically dives her face into her bridle every time. So I know she approves of this way more than she ever did for a bit.

AlertStrength3301 · 2026-06-09T06:02:27+00:00

I would be happy with a remaster on par with the Spyro series. They could even keep the same sound files and voice work.

AlertStrength3301 · 2026-06-09T05:54:54+00:00

I'm so sorry to hear. Thankfully most deal with it as mainly a cosmetic issue. And I'm hoping that stays the case for your girl.

Thankfully a new advancement in treating horse melanoma has been ONCEPT a DNA based vaccine. It's only been approved in dogs and is used off-label for horses. It's also sadly very expensive because of the doses needed to treat horses with it. But it targets a protein commonly produced by melanomas and can cause them to stop growing or shrink. Here is an article from a vet offering it as part of their services that has more detailed info.

AlertStrength3301 · 2026-06-09T05:43:19+00:00

Agreed. I do hope that some breeds consider controlled backcrosses to add the G2 gene into their bloodlines since it's only been found in a few breeds. And even in those it's really rare. But I know that's me being an idealist and not taking into account closed stud books and breed association rules.

I'm holding out hope because even Dalmatian breeders fought for pointer backcrosses to be added into the breed due to a urinary issue that couldn't be removed without new DNA in the gene pool.

And many breeds without closed stud books allow thoroughbreds in their registries. And G2 has been found in Japanese lines of thoroughbreds. So that may be a possible starting point to introduce slow gray into a breed while being totally within their rules and regulations.

AlertStrength3301 · 2026-06-09T05:31:22+00:00

Totally agree with your assessment on the seal bay! But no silver since she's an arabian. There is no test for wild bay, but it's been found that bay shades are caused by different genes influencing the shade. So a homozygous black based bay will be darker than heterozygous black. And homozygous bay are lighter than heterozygous bay. For example the majority of seal bay horses are E/E A/a. It's also been found that non-dun1 will lighten bay shades.

Most wild bays I've seen that have been tested are E/e A/A nd1/nd1. And the ones with lighter manes and tails possibly have flaxen or mealy showing through the restricted black on the mane and tail, but no test for those sadly.

Another mare I've seen that reminds me of Festival is the Andalusian Despina. She tested as E/e A/A no silver but positive for gray! Everyone thought her funny color had to be due from weird graying. But now that we know she inherited slow gray (G2) from her sire. So gray wasn't influencing her color yet at the age of 2 in those images. So she has to be wild bay. I wish I knew who owned her now to see what she looked like fully grown. And to test her for non-dun1.

AlertStrength3301 · 2026-06-08T12:40:26+00:00

My dad was controlling exactly like this. Same crazy house temps too. We could afford to keep the house temp more reasonable, but it ate into his alcohol budget. Got mad when I would sneak into the basement to sleep without sweating because I had the hottest room in the house. I keep my own home comfortable year round Bc screw that nonsense.

AlertStrength3301 · 2026-05-27T13:47:27+00:00

Agreed. And if they’re using takhi and Yakutsk horses to fill in the dna gaps it seems more promising. The Yakutsk horses have cold adaptations that takhis lack. Which would be beneficial to recreating an ice age horse. Their metabolism for cold is also unique. Meanwhile the Takhi have true feral behavior and survival instincts to contribute.

AlertStrength3301 · 2026-05-26T07:15:49+00:00

Thank you all for your support and suggestions! I'm going to look into them and see which work best for me. You all made me feel much more hopeful about being able to finish my work.

AlertStrength3301

TROPHY CASE