Eclipse--the great one

vineyridge · Postby **vineyridge** » Tue Mar 01, 2011 1:24 pm

Was he a dilute?

There is a German article that makes that claim. I've looked at the painting that is on the database and he looks just plain chestnut to me. IMO the article suffers from many mistakes.
http://altmarkhof.com/Presse/DerTrakehner112010.pdf

xfactor fan · Postby **xfactor fan** » Tue Mar 01, 2011 1:46 pm

If Eclipse was a regular cream dilute, then 50% of his foals would all be dilute. So there would be a whole colleciton palominos, buckskins and smokey blacks. I suspect someone would have noticed.

The other possibility is that there is a weak cream dilution --what's currently being called pearl, or Barlink. Two copies make a palomino like color, one lightens the shade a bit. This might be present in the current gene pool.

The dilute horses in the article are both from known cream lines, Milkie and Glitter Please.

Can't coment on the rest of the article--my German isn't up to it.

aethervox · Postby **aethervox** » Tue Mar 01, 2011 2:44 pm

No he wasn't.

According to this article: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0015172 he was genetically chestnut -- they actually tested his DNA.

Pan Zareta · Postby **Pan Zareta** » Tue Mar 01, 2011 4:05 pm

aethervox,

Was there ever any reply to your 'no cream in the TB' inquiry?

aethervox · Postby **aethervox** » Tue Mar 01, 2011 4:31 pm

Pan Zareta wrote:aethervox,

Was there ever any reply to your 'no cream in the TB' inquiry?

No, there wasn't. :evil:

xfactor fan · Postby **xfactor fan** » Tue Mar 01, 2011 11:56 pm

Does anyone know what was tested? All Palominos are genetic chestnuts. So if they tested base coat color, but not for the dilute, he'd have come back as a chestnut.

Mostly playing devil's advocate, I think Eclipse was a chestnut. Mostly because Stubbs the artist was very, very good. Too good to make a mistake in color. And there are other paintings where Stubbs clearly had painted palominos. So it wasn't like he didn't know the color existed.

WhistleJacket, could be a flaxen chestnut, or a very dark palomino. Depending on the scan of the painting. Anyone seen it in person?

angrovestud · Postby **angrovestud** » Wed Mar 02, 2011 5:32 am

Yes I have it looks like hes a chesnut carring flaxon he has white back foot and white is used in the tail from the top of the tail on the underside so its not sun bleachng white is also use in the main at the top
I saw it n july 2005 in london at the stubbs exhibition

Alywow · Postby **Alywow** » Wed Mar 02, 2011 5:45 am

I've seen "Whistlejacket" in person and he's definitely a painting of a chestnut horse. A glorious piece of artwork -- Stubbs work is amazing and Whistlejacket is his crown jewel.

aethervox · Postby **aethervox** » Wed Mar 02, 2011 6:02 am

xfactor fan wrote:Does anyone know what was tested? All Palominos are genetic chestnuts. So if they tested base coat color, but not for the dilute, he'd have come back as a chestnut.

Mostly playing devil's advocate, I think Eclipse was a chestnut. Mostly because Stubbs the artist was very, very good. Too good to make a mistake in color. And there are other paintings where Stubbs clearly had painted palominos. So it wasn't like he didn't know the color existed.

In the article they state that they tested for cream because it doesn't exist in the thoroughbred. We know better.

I did send the first author an e-mail about it, but received no response :evil:

Linda_d · Postby **Linda_d** » Wed Mar 02, 2011 7:06 am

Sooty can make palominos dark enough to look alot like chestnuts with flaxen. Look at this picture of an old-time AQHA horse, Brush Mount, who is a well-known source of cream in QHs: http://www.allbreedpedigree.com/brush+mount. He was incorrectly registered as a dun (probably meaning red dun), possibly because sooty also frequently accentuates counter-shading and gives horses what appear to be dorsal stripes.

Pan Zareta · Postby **Pan Zareta** » Wed Mar 02, 2011 3:03 pm

aethervox wrote:In the article they state that they tested for cream because it doesn't exist in the thoroughbred. We know better.

It was used as a "control invariant" site. But they got variation. PCR product from one of the teeth believed to have come from Eclipse genotyped homozygous cream. Given the fact that cream does, in fact, exist in the TB, do you find their explanation (probable C->T transition artefact) sufficient? I'm inclined to wonder if perhaps that tooth didn't actually come from Eclipse.

xfactor fan · Postby **xfactor fan** » Wed Mar 02, 2011 4:09 pm

Let me get this straight.

DNA from what was supposed to be Eclipse's tooth tested positive for CR CR? CR being the dominant dilution gene. Non dilute horses would be cr cr. Palominos would be CR cr, and Cremellos would be CR CR.

If this was true, wouldn't he have had to be a cremello? And we know thatpothe wasn't. Cremellos are pretty easy to spot. And I'm sure that Stubbs would have know the difference.

Pan Zareta · Postby **Pan Zareta** » Wed Mar 02, 2011 7:46 pm

xfactor fan wrote:Let me get this straight.

DNA from what was supposed to be Eclipse's tooth tested positive for CR CR? CR being the dominant dilution gene. Non dilute horses would be cr cr. Palominos would be CR cr, and Cremellos would be CR CR.

If this was true, wouldn't he have had to be a cremello? And we know thatpothe wasn't. Cremellos are pretty easy to spot. And I'm sure that Stubbs would have know the difference.

Yes, the tooth is believed to have come from Eclipse, possibly (probably?) from his articulated skeleton at the RVC. What isn't clear is whether that tooth was the only sample believed to have come from Eclipse that was used for the coat color comparison. If several samples from that skeleton were used and this is the only one that turned up homozygous for cream, then either that result was invalid (as was considered probable in the report) or the tooth didn't come from (or wasn't original to) the jaw of the skeleton.

I'm not trying to suggest that Eclipse was a cremello. There are other scenarios that could explain the results. My main question is to what extent was the conclusion regarding the validity of the results from that tooth dependent upon the presumtion that all TBs are homozygous non-cream. They've had enough trouble determining which of several samples believed to represent Eclipse actually do without throwing mistakes like that into the mix.

color · Postby **color** » Wed Mar 02, 2011 11:03 pm

There is a picture of Eclipse aside of his mum and there he looks definitely Palomino. Dark coat and snow white mane and tail! When the picture is small you can barely see the mane and forelock but if you make it bigger you can clearly see the white against the background. Homozygous cream is impossible but heterozygous cream would be possible.

aethervox · Postby **aethervox** » Thu Mar 03, 2011 12:12 pm

Pan Zareta wrote:
aethervox wrote:In the article they state that they tested for cream because it doesn't exist in the thoroughbred. We know better.

It was used as a "control invariant" site. But they got variation. PCR product from one of the teeth believed to have come from Eclipse genotyped homozygous cream. Given the fact that cream does, in fact, exist in the TB, do you find their explanation (probable C->T transition artefact) sufficient? I'm inclined to wonder if perhaps that tooth didn't actually come from Eclipse.

After skimming through the reference articles, I believe that there is enough evidence to show that the C->T translation happens frequently in degraded DNA, but I'll see if I can find any other information.