Tosho Falco

[Arctic Cielo]

Just wondering where this boy got his palomino color, and was there any siblings with the dilute color?

http://www.angelfire.com/on3/TrueColour ... minos.html
Just scroll down to his pic on this page by True Colours.

http://www.pedigreequery.com/tosho+falco

Is he still alive?

[Lucy]

No other registered dilutes in his immediate family, or back along his damline. While his closest Japansese relatives are tough to double-check, their European & US-bred forebears check out dilute-free.

Either he's a light flaxen that looks very palomino, or somebody had an 'oops'....but given that didn't go to stud, it's impossible to say for sure. Perhaps he didn't go to stud because his parentage was questioned - I was unable to find out, but one wouldn't think something like that would happen so recently. No idea if he's still alive or not.

By the way, his dam was misspelled - two L's in 'Camellia'. That's all fixed.

[Arctic Cielo]

Thanks Lucy, makes you wonder if there was a parentage mix up or something.

[summerhorse]

He's probably just a flaxen chestnut (maybe helped along with some peroxide?). It's a shame there aren't any pictures of his parents/grandparents/siblings, anything!

[vineyridge]

Can dilute hide under gray?

If the two got linked somehow, that might explain crop outs.

[Lucy]

Gray will hide anything. But as a foal's base coat color is obvious at birth, with the gray creeping in later, I'd imagine people would know if they had a dilute on their hands well before it 'greyed out'.

[xfactor fan]

One of the odder discoveries in genetics is that enviornmental influences can cause new genes to appear. Shades of Lemark. This of course has all the strict Mendelian folks in a tizzy.
So maybe the shift in diet/conditions in this bloodline caused the cream gene to be unlocked from the junk DNA, and appear.

[TrueColours]

Years ago I spoke with the fellow in Japan that originally sent the pictures to me to see if there were any siblings for sale and he didnt know of any.

I, too, wonder if he is truly a palomino or a very light flaxen instead

But as a foal's base coat color is obvious at birth, with the gray creeping in later, I'd imagine people would know if they had a dilute on their hands well before it 'greyed out'.

Not necessarily Lucy. Not if you are dealing with a smoky black or a very very dark buckskin.

Here is a picture of my Guaranteed Galoubet filly at 1 month old (by Guaranteed Gold - cremello - so you 100% know she HAS to be a dilute of some description!) out of a very dark bay WB mare



and now one of her at 4 months of age:



She sure doesnt *SCREAM* buckskin. More of a sunbleached bay and if she started to grey out (if the dam was a grey instead of bay) no one would be any the wiser until she started popping out dilute babies, leaving people scratching their heads!

So - yeah - dilutes *can* hide, especially if they are born this colour and then especially if they grey out as well ...

[summerhorse]

As pointed out greys hide anything and many greys are born "black" although they are not necessarily black (or even "brown"), it's a grey thing! So a dilute can be hidden by sooty making the horse very dark, by black (this filly above may be smoky black OR a seal brown buckskin in which the only dilute parts might be on the nose!), or just by being a dark base color. Morgans and TBs in particular have buckskins and palominos that are impossible to distinguish from a glance (esp. if you don't know them from birth). So yeah it would be easy for cream to skip a few generations without an obvious expression. Because stallions usually have more foals most of the paloiminos have survived throught he bottom lines, many without anyoen realizing they were in fact dilutes!

I would test the filly above just to know how to advertise her!

[xfactor fan]

In breeds that don't officially have cream, there would be strong selection pressure against the light clear palominos, and a very strong selection for the dark--sooty or other dark modifiers. I suspect that there is a linkage on the chromosome between the cream gene, and some dark gene. They are probably close together, so it takes a crossover event to separate the two and --surprise--a golden palomino!

Now that there is a test for cream, it might be interesting to test some odd color TB's, and see what pops up.

[mumtaz]

Sorry to dredge up an old thread, but I thought it was worth noting that Tosho Falco is in fact a flaxen chestnut and NOT a palomino. I have a picture somewhere that shows his true color. Now if I could just find it.

[mumtaz]

Ah, here we go:
http://umaphoto.sakura.ne.jp/wallpapertoshofalco.html

[TrueColours]

Thanks Mumtaz! He really doesnt look palomino in that picture at all, like he does in the track ones ...

Good sleuthing!

[summerhorse]

Yeah peroxide...

You see that a lot in show Arabs and Morgans (or used to, I haven't been near an Arab or Morgan show ring in years now!), other breeds too I'm sure!

Thanks for clearing up the mystery Mumtaz!!