Monday, November 15, 2010

What Color Is She?

One of the fun thing about paints is there are so many different genes, patterns, variations and combinations that every time you see one, you can spend hours asking and speculating about what kind of genes the horse may carry.

This morning I got a little surprise. Well, actually there were two little surprises. The first one was that Itty Bitty gave me a kiss. She walked right up to the fence, stuck her nose out at me, and gave me not one, but two lovely horsey-kisses.

It was wonderful because the poor girl has been scared to death. She's so jumpy and not at all sure of what the heck is going on, so for her to just stroll right up and want that kind of attention really warmed my heart. Right now I'm just letting her settle in, meet the other horses and get used to the way of life around the farm, but she took initiative to say "hi" and it made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.


However, when she turned around to go check out her feed, I saw that her tail was "skunked!"

(Not Itty Bitty's Tail)

Well, duh! It had crossed my mind that the markings on her sides were a little unusual for a typical sabino. She has really gotten lighter since she was a foal, so I was curious as to why she had so much roaning so fast. Eddie's type of sabino roaning really doesn't come out until ages two or three, and her neither of her parents have any roaning, so it was a bit odd that she's so...roan.

Well, she's rabicano. She's got the characteristics, on top of her "normal' overo markings. I've only ever had one other horse with any rabicano markings, so I'm admittedly in unfamiliar territory here, but it's safe to say it's a pretty cool look:


So, in toto, I've got a solid with sabino roaning like her daddy (Bambi), a blue-eyed frame overo with sabino roaning like his daddy (Fabian), a gray overo whose spots you can't see because she's practically white (Paula), a blue-eyed, extreme splash overo that looks like he's tovero (Moose), and now a sabino/rabicano whose color who will most likely get more roan with each passing year.

Variety is the spice of life,

Photobucket

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very cool colors and patterns! Norman is our only pinto, and he's a classic overo, with the additional fun of champagne coloring.

Unknown said...

What a variety.

BridgeEtta said...

I can't keep up with all the colours that seem new to me. But that coon tail, I've seen before on a pretty little mare we had once, that went back to Go Man Go. And if I remember right he had a coon tail. To me that means speed, but that's just me and my experience with the look.

Jessie said...

They're always coming out with some new color, aren't they? I love looking at the UC Davis site every once in a while just to see what new color tests they've developed....