# Talk to me about dapples



## DraftyAiresMum (Jun 1, 2011)

Do you mean dapples on a grey or dapples on any other color?

If any other color, they are mostly a sign of good health. It does seem that some breeds/specific animals are more apt to show them, so part of me wonders if it isn't genetic as well.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## 3rdTimestheCharm (Jan 18, 2015)

Subbing. I'd like to hear what others think as I've always kind of wondered if it has to with genetics combined with good health, as well.


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## Dustbunny (Oct 22, 2012)

Irish Cob said:


> Can they develop as the horse gets older?
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


 With a gray, my experience is they disappear as the horse gets older, leaving the horse white or flea bitten.


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## DanteDressageNerd (Mar 12, 2015)

I'm very interested in following this topic as well for someone to shed some light. I used to follow equine genetics but I'm not 100% sure about dapples. I believe there is a genetic component but I'm not certain.

That said my quarab is a dappled buckskin. In pictures his dapples don't always appear with my camera but even during winter and clipped, I can still see them come through which makes me think there has to be a genetic component. Several of his half siblings through the arabian sire have dapples too but not as prominent as he does. His full brother is the same color, just as dappled but with more white.


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## Irish Cob (Nov 8, 2015)

I am meaning any colour horse.
Mine does get dapples in the summer, couldn't tell you as now a total fluff ball.
I know her dam also gets them.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Fantelle (Oct 26, 2015)

Dapple isn't even in option when choosing colors for your horses here on the forums. :C


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## LittleBayMare (Jun 2, 2014)

In gray horses, dapples are a sign of age. As they gray out around 5-10 (?) they tend to have dapples to varying degrees, then they loose them as they age and turn white. In most other colors (buckskin, bay, brown, dun, palomino, chestnut, etc) dapples are generally a sign of health and good nutrition. I've never seen a malnourished horse that wasn't gray with dapples. On the flip side, my chestnut pony looses his dapples when he gets obese. All of my horses (a buckskin, two chestnuts, and a bay/brown) loose their dapples when they develop nutritional imbalances even if their weight is perfect. 
I am no expert on the subject, but I hope this helps. :cowboy:


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## EponaLynn (Jul 16, 2013)

Gorgeous horse DanteDressageNerd, and my favorite color!


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## WhattaTroublemaker (Aug 13, 2013)

We have a bay who dapples out beautifully in the summer, and this year he was a tad obese. He had more dapples than ever. I think it's nutritional. Both his parents were solid bays, no dapples, but they are also poorly fed, and have varying stages of health as years go by.


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## Irish Cob (Nov 8, 2015)

I wish I could find some research on it.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## SwissMiss (Aug 1, 2014)

EponaLynn said:


> Gorgeous horse DanteDressageNerd, and my favorite color!


Second that!
I'm actually drooling over here, lol.


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## DanteDressageNerd (Mar 12, 2015)

Thank you  He's a good kid. The color was kind of a surprise for me, I had no intention of buying a horse of color but he was the right one.

From what I've been reading in bays, palominos, bays, etc can carry something called the "sooty" factor which can cause dappling. So some horses are genetically predisposed to have "dapples" and then I read a lot of the times it's just a sign of good health and having proper nutrition and enough fat to dapple *shrugs*

Winter coat still has dapples. They're more prominent in person, the lighting isn't stellar and my camera isn't great but they're there.


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## GracielaGata (Jan 14, 2012)

We have 3 horses- my buttermilk buckskin like DanteDressageNerd (beautiful by the way), a bay BLM mustang, and a greyed-to-full-white appy gelding. The buckskin mare is the only one who shows really good dappling. Oh, and the bay mustang, he is a chub, so he has the fat to show it, if that is the reason. The full white gelding seems to have no chance of dapples either lol. 

My mare usually is dapply no matter the season, but it might disappear or get odd looking when the seasons change/shedding effects it. 

Last year in the spring, her dapples were insane.
Here is a photo of her dark ones. I am curious if she will get that dark/sooty this coming spring again.


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## DraftyAiresMum (Jun 1, 2011)

GracielaGata said:


> We have 3 horses- my buttermilk buckskin like DanteDressageNerd (beautiful by the way), a bay BLM mustang, and a greyed-to-full-white appy gelding. The buckskin mare is the only one who shows really good dappling. Oh, and the bay mustang, he is a chub, so he has the fat to show it, if that is the reason. The full white gelding seems to have no chance of dapples either lol.
> 
> My mare usually is dapply no matter the season, but it might disappear or get odd looking when the seasons change/shedding effects it.
> 
> ...


She appears to have sooty, as well.


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## LoriF (Apr 3, 2015)

Irish Cob said:


> I wish I could find some research on it.
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


I've looked and looked myself at various times. I really can't find anything either other than peoples conjectures. I'm thinking it could be hereditary but it gets more prominent with nutrition or coat changes. My bay mare dapples every summer and my chestnut mare has dappled at times as well.


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## Chaz80 (Sep 29, 2015)

DanteDressageNerd said:


> I'm very interested in following this topic as well for someone to shed some light. I used to follow equine genetics but I'm not 100% sure about dapples. I believe there is a genetic component but I'm not certain.
> 
> That said my quarab is a dappled buckskin. In pictures his dapples don't always appear with my camera but even during winter and clipped, I can still see them come through which makes me think there has to be a genetic component. Several of his half siblings through the arabian sire have dapples too but not as prominent as he does. His full brother is the same color, just as dappled but with more white.


Wow he is a beut!! I love buckskin,we call it dun in the UK!
I have a welsh sec c x and she is bay with absouloutly beautiful dapples in summer but in winter they have faded!
I don't think they show well in this PIC though! It was taken late august.


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## GracielaGata (Jan 14, 2012)

DraftyAiresMum said:


> She appears to have sooty, as well.


We have always wondered, but does sooty come and go? She has never been that much at all, except for the spring of that photo (which was 2015 spring, not this year, I was off by a year). She is fairly clean of soot any other time...


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## WhattaTroublemaker (Aug 13, 2013)

GracielaGata said:


> She is fairly clean of soot any other time...


Hahahahaha sorry had to laugh at this, all I can picture is a woman cleaning soot off a horse LOL, and the sooty factor would always be there, but as her coat changes due to weather, sun bleaching etc, it may seem to "vanish" we had a palomino that turned dull brown in winter, but he was still palomino, his winter fuzzy just hid it.


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## GracielaGata (Jan 14, 2012)

WhattaTroublemaker said:


> Hahahahaha sorry had to laugh at this, all I can picture is a woman cleaning soot off a horse LOL, and the sooty factor would always be there, but as her coat changes due to weather, sun bleaching etc, it may seem to "vanish" we had a palomino that turned dull brown in winter, but he was still palomino, his winter fuzzy just hid it.


Yep, I knew it would be taken that way, since that was how I took it too.  
...which is why I left it as it was. 

But even if she never was really sooty before? She is also half appy- that doesn't affect it though, right?


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## Irish Cob (Nov 8, 2015)

Lovely horses


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## Corporal (Jul 29, 2010)

I'm going to put my foot into the water, even though I've had it bitten when talking about color.
As I understand it, any horse with dappling has genetics from a dapple grey in his/her background.
I have had several horses with dappling that appears during the summer, but disappears as they put on their winter coats. None of them have been greys, and I have owned several black horses that both bleach to red AND dapple.
It has little or nothing to do with their health, and just the amount of melatonin that is necessary to create this coat pattern.


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## GracielaGata (Jan 14, 2012)

Corporal said:


> I'm going to put my foot into the water, even though I've had it bitten when talking about color.
> As I understand it, any horse with dappling has genetics from a dapple grey in his/her background.
> I have had several horses with dappling that appears during the summer, but disappears as they put on their winter coats. None of them have been greys, and I have owned several black horses that both bleach to red AND dapple.
> It has little or nothing to do with their health, and just the amount of melatonin that is necessary to create this coat pattern.


I could believe that completely, Corporal.  Like I said, all 3 of mine get fed the same good diet, and the bay mustang should REALLY be awesome on the diet, as he is a bit chunkier and mustangs are just air ferns... but he is a bay who gets no real discernible dapples. I just assumed he was 'too bay' to get dapples. 
But on the other hand.... our other appy gelding IS a grey- he is greyed to white... so why aren't there any visible dapples on him with season changes? Because he surpassed that stage?

I even had wondered if dappling merely has to do with HOW the coat is growing- i.e. my buttermilk mare who dapples nearly always gets much heavier dappling with the coat changes. it is as if when she gets new hairs growing in, they physically grow in in a pattern that makes the dappling. I have also noticed it in regards to when she is chilled- as the hairs stand out, I swear you can physically SEE the dapples still in the standing pattern. 
But then as the season goes on and she gets more and more hair in, the dapples get a bit faint.
Heck, I even wondered if it was possible to brush the dapples out, lol. 

Another odd coat thing I have noticed, and really only on the buttermilk (has anyone else seen this?) Is that on her ribs, when she is shorter coated and she gets cold, you can see actual lines over her rib cage. Where I assume the hairs are standing up differently? I need to try to get a photo of it, but it isn't easy to get contrasted. My friends' bay and chestnut have done it a bit too, it almost seems like they have to have a fairly sleek summer coat to do it.


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## FrostedLilly (Nov 4, 2012)

Corporal said:


> I'm going to put my foot into the water, even though I've had it bitten when talking about color.
> As I understand it, any horse with dappling has genetics from a dapple grey in his/her background.
> I have had several horses with dappling that appears during the summer, but disappears as they put on their winter coats. None of them have been greys, and I have owned several black horses that both bleach to red AND dapple.
> It has little or nothing to do with their health, and just the amount of melatonin that is necessary to create this coat pattern.


Interesting, I've never heard that before about the grey in the lineage. I have heard that it has little to do with health though and more to do with genetics though. My mare has one grey in her background about 3 generations back and she gets wonderful dapples, especially in summer. She also has them in winter, but only if you really look closely and they look more like imprints in her hair at first glance until you look closer and see what they are.


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## Irish Cob (Nov 8, 2015)

so what about a horse developing dapples that hasn't had them before?
Horse is a dark bay and not mine so no permission to use the image.
Can horses develop them as they age?
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## WhattaTroublemaker (Aug 13, 2013)

Looking back on pictures from other years, our bay has no dapples some years, but very strong dapples other years. I wonder if it's how the coat grows?


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## FrostedLilly (Nov 4, 2012)

I think there might be an indirect link to health. A healthy horse will typically have a sleek, shiny coat and reflect light better, so it's easy to see dapples. A dull coat doesn't reflect light as well, so perhaps they're not as visible. I'm sure from year to year, the amount of oils produced on their coats varies too and so maybe that makes them more or less visible from one year to the next? I have absolutely no facts to back this up, that's just my own little theory. I know after my mare foaled, her coat severely faded over the summer months where it didn't in previous years and I think it was because she was nursing and so less resources were going to her coat. This was her last summer. You can still see her dapples, but they are not nearly as visible as they were in previous years when her coat was less faded and a little more healthy.


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## DraftyAiresMum (Jun 1, 2011)

Not sure I buy the grey link.

My best friend's brown QH mare has no greys anywhere remotely close on her pedigree (at least not until you get back past her grandsire's great grandsire). Two years ago, she displayed dappling for the first time ever. She was 9 or 10-years-old at the time. We had some of the best quality hay we've had in a while that year, too (horses here don't generally get pasture grass, so are fed usually alfalfa and/or bermuda year round).


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## nicoles (Apr 15, 2013)

My yearling just got her first real dapples as her winter coat came in. 

These aren't great shots, but first pic is a few months ago in her summer coat. Rest were taken in the past week. She's super woolly and dusty in the winter pics (versus clean in the summer pic), but you can still see dapples coming through.

Ignore my leaves... we just moved in a month ago and the pasture has been neglected for so long that I'm just now getting around to removing them.

The only difference is I'm keeping her at home now, as of 3 weeks ago. She lived off a roundbale and grain at the boarding place. Here she gets 2 flakes of alfalfa a day. A 3rd if it dips below freezing at night (we're in Texas so it's not often...). 

I checked her papers and there are no grays listed.


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## nicoles (Apr 15, 2013)

BUT, now that I've looked at her pics in my photobucket album, she didn't have dapples last winter and there she was on 2 alfalfa flakes plus grain there (boarded at my friend's place). And no grass. Here she's had lots of grass. She only lived at the boarding place for 2 months and that was her only diet change since weaning. 



So I have no idea what did it and have no "2 cents" of my own to give this discussion lol. I'm not complaining though, it's cool. My black gelding sure doesn't ever get dapples.


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## CAP (Jun 18, 2014)

2 Of my horses dam's had dapples, so I'm not sure if it was genetic but after a year of feeding them flax seed they both began showing dapples. And now my cremello mare doesn't have a parent with dapples, and again about a year of feeding her flax seed she is now showing dapples, although hers are hard to see in certain lighting you can see them clearly.


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