# (Very) hidden splash?



## DenaliOllyOxenFree (Mar 11, 2016)

Same mare form my other post, looked at her a few days ago and noticed a tiny blue fleck in one eye. First thing I did was research causes, and I'm pretty sure this is just pigment, making it an almost unnoticeable partial blue eye. Still going to have the vet take a look when he's out this week so don't panic.

Went exploring on allpedigree, turns out her sire has a fair amount of white. He got that from his dam as far as I can tell - she has high white and a blaze and has produced the same on at least two occasions (hard to find photos of all her offspring!). Probably not from his sire (Dual Pep), as that bloodline has been widely propagated and doesn't have a ton of chrome. But I could be wrong there. Mare's dam is solid, very unlikely it came from her.

The reason I'm suspecting splash is that fleck in her eye and the fact that her facial markings are "bottom heavy" (or as much as they can be). She has a snip and a difficult to distinguish white spot on her muzzle. It's the typical sort of distribution, just in a very restricted form. Although she is sorrel, and I remember reading that red horses tend to express more white than black based ones. So hat's odd. But then every horse in her pedigree I've found looks to be red so no real frame of reference there. 

My girl (She's pregnant, pardon the passenger in her belly)


























Hard to get a good pic of the eye

















Sire









Sire's sire









Sire's dam (Jazabell Quixote)









Her sire (Doc Quixote)









Her dam (Bills Jazabell)









Cutter Bill, who has a very interesting blaze









Another of her foals (by Freckles Playboy fwiw)









She also has foals by Smart Little Lena and Son Ofa Doc (Very little white) that were dual registered AQHA and APHA, so she threw cropouts. 

Sorry for the novel, I just find this stuff really cool. Any ideas?


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## SunnyDraco (Dec 8, 2011)

Wouldn't rule out frame, it carries through lineage hiding under other white expression genes or even on completely solid horses. The shape of the blaze on some of the horses you shared actually have a frame look to them where it matters, spreading a blaze horizontally towards the eyes. Frame isn't the only one at play on those horses either, just perhaps altering the shape of the blaze just a little. The sire's dam appears to have frame more convincingly with her other expressions. The blaze going horizontal towards the eye and something odd with the shape of the white on a front foot. I wouldn't be surprised if your mare's sire carried sabino, splash and frame by the looks of the markings. Splash liking clean lines, sabino liking jagged lines and a centered down the face white expression and frame doing some vertical towards the eyes movement. 

Only way to know whether or not to eliminate the possibly of frame causing a blue fleck in her eye would be to test her for frame 

And as far as Cutter Bill who you describe as having an interesting blaze, that is splash winning over sabino. The hind foot shows sabino influence but also likes centered facial white. However splash likes to be bottom heavy on the face and slip sideways, splash won on slipping off of center ;-)


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## Zexious (Aug 2, 2013)

Subbing


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## DenaliOllyOxenFree (Mar 11, 2016)

Hm well that' interesting. What tips the scale between a blaze like that and a line like Gunner's (that consistently throws loud splash)?

This is her sister (APHA) - same dam, sire is supposed to be by my mares sire but I don't personally have her papers. Got topi from dad, but I've never been certain what all she has. I'll find a better photo of her face and other side. There's another spot sort of in the shape of a rain drop on her other hip and a blaze with white under her chin.










Oh, and I'm sending hair off to test for splash and agouti, didn't even consider frame before I ordered the kit.


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## DenaliOllyOxenFree (Mar 11, 2016)




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## SunnyDraco (Dec 8, 2011)

Her sister has an odd shape to that spot on her flank, looks a bit horizontal which means she could also have frame. Most horses with frame require testing to know for certain if they have frame as it usually doesn't cause loud white expressions, which is why it is so important to test for frame when breeding horses that are a breed known to carry frame (AQHA, APHA, ApHC, miniatures and many others are known to have frame carriers within the breed) otherwise you risk a 1 in 4 chance of watching a newborn foal die painfully within 72 hours of birth if not humanely euthanized (breeding 2 frame carriers is a 25% chance of getting a homozygous frame which is fatal to the foal because it causes their intestinal tract to be incomplete and no amount of surgery can fix their inability to poop, which means homozygous frame -lethal white- foals start dying due to incureable constipation the moment they are born).

Another forum member has a beautiful mare that is registered breeding stock APHA, has one white marking, a star between her eyes and she tested positive for frame.

Crop out quarter horses are all "overos" which means they are loud expressions of the same genetics that may or may not cause normal facial white and socks (some will carry these genes without any white expression on themselves to show that they carry an "overo" gene. The three overo genes are sabino, splash and frame. They have their own pattern behaviors and horses are unlimited on how many different patterns they carry. It is a common misconception that a horse who is homozygous for tobiano will not also have frame, but they most certainly can because the different white expression genes are unrelated to one another. A single horse can carry tobiano, sabino, splash and frame. Both splash and frame can cause blue eyes like your mare has a speck of. In fact, your mare looks to be more sabino than anything else. But all overo genes are very clever at hiding with little to no white. Her facial marking is called a strip, below where a star is and above where a snip is. Splash is more likely to be a snip, especially one that is off center and large. A nice centered strip with messy edges has the most influence from sabino. 

Also, not all splash mutations have been identified to be made testable. But if she does come back as having a mutation of splash, I have seen a Morgan foal that came back positive for splash with only a coronet band as the only white marking.


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