# Neat patterned paint mare



## GracielaGata (Jan 14, 2012)

I assume it is fine to post this, as the horse is for sale on my local Craigslist.

This mare is a carrier of LWS, right? 

Either way, I mostly just wanted to share a horse that I think has an extremely neat pattern, as I am not usually too impressed by paints. 

Paint mare


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## BlindHorseEnthusiast4582 (Apr 11, 2016)

I'm not an expert, but me this just looks like a very loud splash pattern.

I don't now how you can assume she's a carrier, I'd like to hear that. Foals with LWS are usually all white or close it with blue eyes, plus often die early in life. She probably has dark eyes too. I'm actually curious though, what made you say she's a carrier?

Either way very pretty mare.


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## GracielaGata (Jan 14, 2012)

I might be totally wrong!! I thought I had heard if they had the color over the spine, but white sides, that was a possible carrier sign? Like I said, I am not a purveyor of paint horse pattern knowledge...so I likely remembered this one wrong. 

I based my thoughts on this type of info found on various sites (quoting only one): The overo coat pattern features white markings that do not cross the back of the horse between its withers and its tail. An overo may be either predominantly dark or white. OLWS is a recessive disorder (two copies of the mutation are necessary to produce disease) that appears to have been selected for in horses where white spotting is a desirable trait.


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## GracielaGata (Jan 14, 2012)

So I decided to research a bit more to check my knowledge... From what I am seeing/reading, splash is a form of overo- and overo is where LWS/Overo LWS syndrome comes from. 

By her pattern, I still think she is overo (frame overo I think she would be called), There could be splash too, but again, it reads online as the same thing. And being this makes her possibly a carrier of the OLWS gene, which means she and any stallion she could be bred to need to be tested for it.

ETA: Maybe my original post should read 'Does this mean she *could* be a carrier of OLWS?' Instead of 'Does this mean she *is* a carrier of OLWS?' I was meaning the same thing, but didn't think about the definiteness intoned.


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## BlindHorseEnthusiast4582 (Apr 11, 2016)

Oh, I could be wrong too! I'm just offering my thoughts.

I've seen a lot of horse pictures where the horse had this same type of pattern, and was called splash white. Now whether or not that is correct I'm not entirely sure, but if she is a carrier it wouldn't matter as long as she was bred to a stud that wasn't. Just a side note ^^

If the overo pattern says that it doesn't cross over the back of the horse, then this mare still fits. If you look, her spine and along both sides of it a short way down are solid brown. The only place that it comes up onto her spine really is at her withers, and even then it isn't over (across) the spine (back). She is predominantly white, and yeah, it's most common in paint horses I think.

Edit: ^^^Yes. I'm pretty sure splash is an overo pattern. I didn't think about frame cause it makes me think of this:








and even again she could be more than one pattern. 

I think maybe "could be" would have been better wording but I also should have seen it like that, lol. Good point that she could be, and we agreed on the fact that the stallion if she was to be bred was an important factor for not getting LWS.


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## GracielaGata (Jan 14, 2012)

Yep.  And yeah, as long as one of them isn't a carrier, I think you are fine, though you have, what a 25% of making a baby who is a carrier, I would think, if I remember my punnet squares properly. 

I think we are both right- she is splash white as that is simply a more specific name for a type of overo.


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## celestejasper13 (May 16, 2014)

Splash and frame are both types of overo. Splash on it's own usually causes socks/stockings and sometimes a white belly and sides, as well as face markings like blazes and white chins. Frame overo is the overo that can present itself as LWS in it's homozygous form, and is characterised by white patches on the side that don't cover the spine or legs. I would say that with her pattern, she probably carries splash and frame, like the horse in the photo you posted BHE.

'Carrier' means she has one copy of the gene. If a horse displays the frame pattern, it means they are definitely a carrier of the gene, and bred to another carrier there is a 25% of a lethal white overo foal. Bred to a non-carrier, there is a 25% chance of the foal carrying and having the frame overo pattern.


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## ApuetsoT (Aug 22, 2014)

The whole overo/tovaro things is needlessly confusing. That mare is a Frame, meaning she is a LWO carrier. I don't see splash but it can be quite minimal. Maybe tobiano based on the white on her neck.


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## GracielaGata (Jan 14, 2012)

celestejasper13 said:


> 'Carrier' means she has one copy of the gene. If a horse displays the frame pattern, it means they are definitely a carrier of the gene, and bred to another carrier there is a 25% of a lethal white overo foal. Bred to a non-carrier, there is a 25% chance of the foal carrying and having the frame overo pattern.


The part in red- if that foal has a 25% chance of carrying and having the frame overo pattern, the fact that the OLWS carrier was bred to a non-carrier means that you removed the chances of having a OLWS baby, correct? (The whole reason that breeding is considered okay, compared to OLWS to OLWS, I would think lol)


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## GracielaGata (Jan 14, 2012)

ApuetsoT said:


> The whole overo/tovaro things is needlessly confusing. That mare is a Frame, meaning she is a LWO carrier. I don't see splash but it can be quite minimal. Maybe tobiano based on the white on her neck.


So it is definitive: a horse that is visibly carrying frame ALWAYS carries LWO?


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## celestejasper13 (May 16, 2014)

A horse that carries frame overo always carries LWO. A horse that carries splash overo does not. They are two different genes. See frame overo and LWO as the same thing - one copy = pretty pony, two copies = dead foal. Two carriers should never be bred because of the chance of a dead foal. However you're right, breeding a carrier to a non carrier will give 75% chance of a non carrier foal, 25% chance of a patterned, carrier foal. 

Splash overo is caused by a different set of genes, there is some debate over whether some of those genes can cause a type of embryonic lethal, and it is sometimes associated with congenital deafness, although it is not as clear cut as with frame overo and 99% of the time causes no issues.

Sorry if this is a little confusing!


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## celestejasper13 (May 16, 2014)

Just to correct myself - a carrier bred to a non-carrier has a 50% chance of a carrier foal, not a 25%! my bad!


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## GracielaGata (Jan 14, 2012)

Not at all confusing CelesteJasper... but I was about to ask about the math. 

I always wondered about congenital deafness, since white in/on/around dogs' and cats' ears associates with the genes for deafness.


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## ApuetsoT (Aug 22, 2014)

The LWO gene is what causes the colour. You can't have one without the other, but you can have a minimally expressed frame which will not visibly look frame but would still pass on LWO to offspring.


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## GracielaGata (Jan 14, 2012)

Perfect ApuetsoT, that is exactly what I was trying to ask. 

I knew a lot more correct info about this than I expected.


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## ApuetsoT (Aug 22, 2014)

celestejasper13 said:


> However you're right, breeding a carrier to a non carrier will give 75% chance of a non carrier foal, 25% chance of a patterned, carrier foal. !


No. Frame is a simple dominant. Draw a simple punnit square and it'll show that it's a 50% of frame, 50% non-frame. 

Breed carrier to carrier and it's 25% non, 50% single lwo, 25% dead foal.

Edit: I see you've corrected yourself above, disregard.


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## GracielaGata (Jan 14, 2012)

ApuetsoT said:


> No. Frame is a simple dominant. Draw a simple punnit square and it'll show that it's a 50% of frame, 50% non-frame.
> 
> Breed carrier to carrier and it's 25% non, 50% single lwo, 25% dead foal.


She corrected herself.


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## SunnyDraco (Dec 8, 2011)

Okay, the mare in question is 18 years old. Little chance of her being bred at that age. 

Overo basically means "white pattern/s that are not tobiano". Most common overo patterns are sabino, splash and frame. Those patterns can be combined or alone, they can all be on a tobiano marked horse as well. 

She is frame overo for certain. No testing needed, she cannot have that loud of an expression of frame without having frame. 

Possibly some splash making the edges of white markings nice and clean, adding white feet as well as making her blaze slip sideways on her muzzle. No tobiano. Frame will put markings horizontally up the neck, not passing over the neck or under the neck. 

As far as the chances of passing frame to offspring, it is a 50% chance that a carrier of frame will pass it to the foal. A frame to non-frame will give you a 50% chance of frame (carrier), 50% non-frame. A frame to frame cross will give you a 50% chance of a frame carrier, 25% chance of non-frame and a 25% chance of LWO (homogygous frame, always lethal causing death typically within 72 hours of birth, better to humanely euthanized to save the foal from a terribly painful slow death which begins the moment they are born). Never a gamble worth making, the odds are the same as a 4 chamber revolver with 1 bullet and 3 blanks, give it a spin and then pull the trigger while aiming it at a newborn foal you waited 11 months to arrive.


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## QtrBel (May 31, 2012)

This is why you test. Her first foal was LWO. You'd never guess from looking at her. She wasn't ours at the time but a local breeder's when it happened. He purchased her to add some speed to his Paints. He sold her to another breeder with a tobiano stallion and she had a really nice filly that has earned plenty. That breeder then used a nice QH stallion he had and you guessed it another foal with LWO. He never dreamed his QH carried it. Test if you aren't sure. The pic in the OP is frame and perhaps something else but definitely frame as has already been covered. A prior poster has given the odds. It isn't worth it.


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## Change (Jul 19, 2014)

@QtrBel - that tiny bit of white on her near gaskin... that is the clue that marks her as frame, isn't it?


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## GracielaGata (Jan 14, 2012)

@Change... you mean on her posted horse correct? In that photo, it looks like that is just the tiny sliver of daylight between her back legs, to me.


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## Change (Jul 19, 2014)

Ah! You're right. Old eyes! LOL


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## QtrBel (May 31, 2012)

What you are seeing is actually space between her legs. Her only white aside from the star on her head and eraser sized mark on her muzzle is that one heel bulb that is white. Because of the jaggedness of the heel bulb mark and the black spots inside I was told frame plus another and the black spots (I always confuse distal and ermine - ermine touch the hoof distal do not) indicate an as yet undiscovered gene (though it may be discovered by now) that is considered an eraser. It suppresses the white they would normally have expressed.


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## Change (Jul 19, 2014)

Thanks, @QtrBel! You answered my question even though I asked it for the wrong marking! I love learning more about paint genetics.


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