# What causes the "brindle" type marking?



## CopperHorse (Mar 29, 2009)

I am curious as to what causes the brindle type coloring on some horse coat patterns? I was looking at a website that had Arabian and Arabian crosses and they had two stallions that have this coloration. I would post pictures but I don't want to post their site without their permission. The one stallion I believe was pure Arab, the other was Arab/Tobiano.


----------



## Poseidon (Oct 1, 2010)

A lot of the time, the brindle horse is chimeric, meaning that, in the womb, it was originally two foals but they "fused" (for lack of a better word) together, creating one horse with two sets of DNA. So when tested, one colour will be one horse and the other colour will show up as a different horse. I'm not sure that makes sense or not. I'm terrible at explaining things


----------



## Indyhorse (Dec 3, 2009)

Po is 100% correct. It's not truly a marking, that you could intentionally breed for, it's a genetic anomaly. You can read more about it in this article:

http://instructor.mstc.edu/instructor/MKundinger/oneinamillion.pdf


----------



## Poseidon (Oct 1, 2010)

I also found the website and stallions in question through a simple google search. Those stallions aren't wowing me with their couple of stripes and since they don't have any pictures of foals to make me think anything different than I posted above, I am going to say they just got lucky and happen to have two horses that have those markings.


----------



## NdAppy (Apr 8, 2009)

There are some genetic brindle horses, *but* they are _extremely_ rare.


----------



## CopperHorse (Mar 29, 2009)

Indyhorse said:


> Po is 100% correct. It's not truly a marking, that you could intentionally breed for, it's a genetic anomaly. You can read more about it in this article:
> 
> http://instructor.mstc.edu/instructor/MKundinger/oneinamillion.pdf


That was a very neat article, thank you for sharing. The two horses Dunbars Gold and Sharp One for sure have a lot more of the brindle coloring then the horses I was referring to. I think it would be cool if they could find a link to breeding the brindle coat pattern, I am a color nut so brindle would be awesome!!


----------



## CopperHorse (Mar 29, 2009)

Poseidon said:


> I also found the website and stallions in question through a simple google search. Those stallions aren't wowing me with their couple of stripes and since they don't have any pictures of foals to make me think anything different than I posted above, I am going to say they just got lucky and happen to have two horses that have those markings.


I wondered if that was the case, but it is neat to look at. Also thank you for not posting the site, I know they can be looked up but since I do not know these people I did not want to post their site address.


----------



## Poseidon (Oct 1, 2010)

They're very rare. You'd be far better off yourself and for the sake of whatever horses you would be breeding to just buy one. Colour is the very last thing that should be bred for.


----------



## CrazyHorseArtist (May 12, 2011)

This website has alot of info on brindles as well as links to info from a brindle breeding program with two types of genetic brindle. its rather interesting.


----------



## Indyhorse (Dec 3, 2009)

Very welcome.

I do believe we have a member on the forums here that has a brindle arab gelding....can't remember for sure who it was, thinking maybe it was Piaffe? Anyone remember?


----------



## NdAppy (Apr 8, 2009)

Piaffe has Nimir.


----------



## Poseidon (Oct 1, 2010)

Yep, it's Piaffe. His name is Nimir, if you want to search for him. 

He also tested positive for gray, so now she's kind of waiting to see if he'll gray out entirely.


----------



## CopperHorse (Mar 29, 2009)

Poseidon said:


> They're very rare. You'd be far better off yourself and for the sake of whatever horses you would be breeding to just buy one. Colour is the very last thing that should be bred for.


Oh I wasn't looking to breed to either stallion. I only have one gelding right now. I used to have/raise appies. And I do know color should not be the purpose for breeding, its just an added bonus.  I meant that I love horses with color more so then anything. 

I appreciate everyone's comments. I had not seen a horse with a brindle markings before and found it quite interesting.


----------



## mustangrider (May 19, 2011)

That was a VERY interesting article. Thank you for sharing that information. I have had horses for 30+ years and didn't even know that there were any brindles out there!


----------

