# Sorrel or bay tobiano?



## CheyRider (Nov 3, 2013)

I'm confused... checked my mare's papers, and her German papers say (in German, obviously) "bay tobiano". That's what I always assumed she was. The breeder, in another part of her papers, used the English term "sorrel tobiano".
But a sorrel is a horse with same or lighter colored mane/tail, correct?

Cheyenne has a white mane, but a black tail and black "bangs", also black rings around her feet causing her hooves to be black despite white socks.
I checked the internet and found other horses with dark tail that are called sorrel tobiano.

Am I correct in assuming my horse and any horse with a black tail is genetically a bay and not a sorrel, even if the mane is white due to the paint markings?

Sorry there's no pic of my mare right here, I haven't quite figured out how to do this, but you can see her in my profile.


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## Red Gate Farm (Aug 28, 2011)

Your horse looks like a bay tobiano to me.

Breeders don't always get the colour correct.


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## lilruffian (Jun 28, 2010)

Definitely bay, not sorrel


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## KigerQueen (Jun 16, 2013)

Sorrel is another term for chestnut (tends to be used more on flaxen horses but any chestnut can be called sorrel). If your horse in not a chestnut then its not a sorrel. If its a bay its a bay.

Both thease horses are sorrel:

















this is a sorrel tobi:


















This is a bay tobi:


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## CheyRider (Nov 3, 2013)

Yep, that's what I thought. Guess the breeder wanted to be all authentic with the English terms and then messed it up, haha. Thanks everyone!


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## lilruffian (Jun 28, 2010)

Ya, trust me, breeders and even many "experience horsepeople" dont know much when it comes to colors. They see what they want to see


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## CheyRider (Nov 3, 2013)

By the way, her mother is definitely a sorrel, her dad is a black tobiano. Anyone feel like explaining how she came to be a bay tobiano? Color genetics are so interesting, but hard to understand once there's more than just the basic colors involved...


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## DraftyAiresMum (Jun 1, 2011)

Chestnut can carry agouti (A for bay and At for brown), but since agouti restricts black, it won't show up on a red-based (chestnut) horse.

So in theory, her dam could have been eeAA or eeAa and her sire Eeaa or EEaa (do you know if he was homozygous for black?). Her sire would have passed on his black gene (Ee or EE) and her dam passed on her agouti gene (AA or Aa), making your mare bay (EeAa).
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## CheyRider (Nov 3, 2013)

If I understand that right, her dam MUST carry the agouti gene or Cheyenne would not have turned out bay, is that correct?
I have no idea what the stallion's genes are, but if he was homozygous, he would never father a sorrel foal, right?
With her funky gene mix (EeAa plus whatever causes all those paint marks), I guess there'd be absolutely no telling what I'd get if I ever bred her, haha.


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## DraftyAiresMum (Jun 1, 2011)

CheyRider said:


> If I understand that right, her dam MUST carry the agouti gene or Cheyenne would not have turned out bay, is that correct?
> I have no idea what the stallion's genes are, but if he was homozygous, he would never father a sorrel foal, right?
> With her funky gene mix (EeAa plus whatever causes all those paint marks), I guess there'd be absolutely no telling what I'd get if I ever bred her, haha.


Precisely. :-D
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## JetdecksComet (Jun 11, 2013)

CheyRider said:


> If I understand that right, her dam MUST carry the agouti gene or Cheyenne would not have turned out bay, is that correct?.


 Yepper.



CheyRider said:


> I have no idea what the stallion's genes are, but if he was homozygous, he would never father a sorrel foal, right?


 Yepper again. (If you mean homozygous for black.)




CheyRider said:


> With her funky gene mix (EeAa plus whatever causes all those paint marks), I guess there'd be absolutely no telling what I'd get if I ever bred her, haha.?


 That would depend on the genes of the stallion you breed her to. There are some that will give you a wide variety of colors and some that will give you only one. For example, if you breed her to a stallion that is homozygous for both black and agouti, you're gonna get a bay/brown foal every time. For other results, you can play with a color calculator:

Color Calculator


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## verona1016 (Jul 3, 2011)

And to further complicate things, I'd guess that she's actually seal brown. Seal brown is a variation of the agouti gene that has a lot of similarities to bay. The key differences are that seal brown tends to be darker (but isn't always), changes shade with the seasons (sometimes very dramatically), and has caramel colored soft points (usually most evident in the muzzle, but also behind the eye, behind the elbow, flank, etc) in their winter coat.

There's one lab that offers a test to distinguish between seal brown agouti (At) and other agouti types.

You can see the caramel colored muzzle pretty well in the snow picture:


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## CheyRider (Nov 3, 2013)

Verona, I think you are right, she might be seal brown agouti. She does change color with seasons, but then, all our horses do. The light muzzle is almost gone in the summer. She's lighter on the inside of her elbows and flanks. She also has lighter eyes than our "normal colored" ponies. I find her black feet and one white ear quite special, too, but I don't know if that is anything weird genetically or just a coincidence. I do know I haven't seen many horses with white legs but black feet...


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## CheyRider (Nov 3, 2013)

JetdecksComet: A color calculator? Now that's a cool thing, I'll have to keep that one in mind, even though I don't think I'll ever breed her (don't think her built is good enough and she's not a purebred Paint Horse) - but who knows, maybe one day I'll think her character is worth a second generation...


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## JetdecksComet (Jun 11, 2013)

Even without breeding, I am such a color nerd that I love to learn about the genetics. I just had my first foal born in 10 years, but I have spent all the time in between geeking up on color genetics!


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## CheyRider (Nov 3, 2013)

It sure is a very interesting topic! Thanks to the color calculator I know now that I'd breed her with a buckskin stallion (LOVE that color), this way I'd get a fantastic chance of some crazy color (I have never seen a buckskin tobiano, or imagine getting a palomino or even palomino tobiano from that combination!). It's really neat the calculator shows all these gene lists as well, so one can learn while playing around with it...
JetdecksComet, what colors did you breed and what did the foal end up with?


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## Chiilaa (Aug 12, 2010)

Some drool material for you


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## JetdecksComet (Jun 11, 2013)

CheyRider said:


> It sure is a very interesting topic! Thanks to the color calculator I know now that I'd breed her with a buckskin stallion (LOVE that color), this way I'd get a fantastic chance of some crazy color (I have never seen a buckskin tobiano, or imagine getting a palomino or even palomino tobiano from that combination!). It's really neat the calculator shows all these gene lists as well, so one can learn while playing around with it...
> JetdecksComet, what colors did you breed and what did the foal end up with?


 Well, mine was quite boring, as I bred a brown mare to a sorrel stallion, both were tobiano. But, I was breeding primarily for job ability, conformation, and temperament. Color was a consideration, but only for the tobiano gene, as in our breed (Paints) you are at a big disadvantage if you end up with a solid foal.

I do have another mare that is homozygous for tobiano. She is black in color, but she carries a red gene. I'd love to breed her to some interesting colored stallion that has proven himself, so I'm keeping my eye out for really nice interesting colored stallions, and I'm not talking pinto color, I just mean their base color plus dilutions/modifiers. I'm in no hurry, as I'm planning to enjoy the foal I have right now and show him until he sells.


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## CheyRider (Nov 3, 2013)

JetdecksComet, the foal is already born, right? In a Paint Horse, color will never be boring, even if the base color is just brown or sorrel... anyway, I think it's great you're more concerned about the quality of the horse rather than the color. I wasn't into colorful horses until I ended up with one, but now I'm kind of hooked. But more than the color, I just love her character. If I ever bred Cheyenne (which most likely will never happen, but a woman can dream, right), I'd only do it once, to keep the foal for myself.


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## JetdecksComet (Jun 11, 2013)

I don't have any objection to anyone breeding a keeper foal for themselves, as long as they are content to get whatever they get. I do wonder why people have a specific goal in mind like... I want a 16.3 hand hunter/jumper out of my 15.2 hand western pleasure mare and this reining stallion... oh and the foal simply must be a palomino filly. Then I'm like, "uh, just buy what you want." lol

Yes, my foal is already here. He arrived on the 7th. I'll tell you his color tomorrow because I have a contest going in the breeding section and don't want to give away one of the answers.


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## CheyRider (Nov 3, 2013)

Haha, I found the contest right after my last post. Now I need to go and see what's new on there...
And yes, that's probably why I won't ever breed her after all, despite the temptation... I'd be worried I won't get what I want - and I'm not talking color or height or special talent, all that is not so relevant for me and my humble purposes as long as I like the horse, but what if the foal ends up with physical problems or a really difficult character? I'm not rich, the max. 2 horses I own must always include one I can ride happily. So I'll just go out and buy my next horse one day in the far future, when she is old and needs to retire, it's safer.


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## JetdecksComet (Jun 11, 2013)

Ah, good to hear. It's so much easier to just buy what you want. And it's not just the risk of not getting what you want or something happening to the foal. The risk to your mare is very real. When my foal was born my mare was very torn up back there and dripped blood for two days. I was very concerned that something was terribly wrong inside. She's passed her exam with flying colors, however, but man, it's stressful when you don't know what's going on inside there. I kept wondering if I was going to wake up to an orphan foal, and not just that, but she's a wonderful mare and I would have mourned her deeply.


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## CheyRider (Nov 3, 2013)

Ugh, yes, that must have been scary. And in the States it seems so hard to get a vet right away, at least some places. I would've slept in the barn, most likely. I'm glad your mare got through it without further complications. I love your new baby boy, by the way! Can't wait to see more of him!


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## JetdecksComet (Jun 11, 2013)

Thanks. I am rather fond of him myself. 

Yeah, our nearest vet is a 50 minute drive. They are nice enough to set me up with some medications, such as Banamine, so that if I have an emergency I can at least do something while I wait on them to arrive or until I can trailer in.

As you can see, my little guy turned out sorrel/chesnut. I didn't have a chance for black because my mare is homozygous for brown, so I could have only gotten a bay/brown or a sorrel/chestnut from this cross, so pretty boring. The stallion was homozygous for tobiano, so I was pretty much guaranteed "color." I would have liked my mare to throw her tobiano, but she didn't. So instead of getting the bay/brown homozgyous tobiano filly I wanted (and would have kept) I got the exact opposite in every aspect, a chestnut/sorrel heterozyous tobiano colt. Oh well.


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## CheyRider (Nov 3, 2013)

That's how it goes, right? I always wanted a dark-haired kid like myself, and got three blondes, against all odds (both my parents and three of my grandparents are dark-haired)... I think I'll keep them, though .


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