Marlon--son of Tamerlane--dilute TB?

[vineyridge]

This horse was exported to Germany and used in Holsteiner breeding. According to some records, he was actually a buckskin and threw some dilute descendants on Holsteiner mares, which at the time were almost exclusively bay. Since Holstein doesn't allow/favor dilute coloring, all of the dilutes were culled from their breeding populations.

But looking at his pedigree, it's a mystery where the dilute could have been hiding. There are a lot of browns and dark bays in his pedigree, but the lines are completely standard and high level thoroughbreds. African Star is a possibility, since he has very few descendants, and one would think the TB people were culling color at the time as much as the Holstein breeders did later.

[Jorge]

More on Marlon at this thread:

http://www.pedigreequery.com/forum/view ... ght=marlon

[color]

Did you know that the famous Eclipse could have been a Palomino? There is a picture of him with his dam and he loosk like having a white tail, white mane and white forelock.

I do not know how to post pictures here, can I send it to someone to post it?

[angrovestud]

the dam was called spilletta and The photo of the picture is on the Coloured FB page

[xfactor fan]

Eclipse might have been flaxen, but I very much doubt he was a palomino, even a dark one.

There are a couple of paintings by Stubbs that are clearly chestnut. And there are a couple of other paintings by Stubbs where he had painted palominos, so he knew the difference.

[angrovestud]

I have just been looking back at this pedigree and it does go back through cream cheeks to Darcy yellow turk makes you wonder
http://www.pedigreequery.com/eclipse

[color]

Exactly. Cream Cheeks was Palomino and it could well be he was a Palomino. We will never know but the picture of him aside of his dam clearly shows a white tail and you can see a white mane against the light background.

[angrovestud]

I think another point to add would be that as white or pale was something that got culed out then a painter brush was also covering up white or palomino possibly

[Linda_d]

If Eclipse was a palomino, then approximately half of his offspring would have been dilutes, either palominos or buckskins. Given the popularity of Eclipse's sire line, that would have made the dilutes much more common, especially in succeeding generations, and they would have been unlikely to be culled based on color. It's easy to cull unwanted colors or markings when they show up only 5 or 10% of the time, but quite another thing to cull those same colors or markings when they show up 25-50% of the time. Instead of being "unwanted", they become "fashionable".

The success of The Tetrarch made gray a fashionable color among TBs after it had been unwanted for decades. Native Dancer has continued the fashionable status of gray into the 21st century.

[angrovestud]

http://www.napit.co.uk/viewus/infobank/ ... m_oaks.php

1786 oakes winner the Yellow filly very odd name otherwise.

this is also quiet interesting .
There has been much modern speculation over the colour of Darcy's Yellow Turk. Even though he was identified as the older of the Darcy's Chesnut Arabians [Royal Studs:94], he was earlier called the Yellow Turk.

Given that people were familiar with the term "gold," the use of "yellow" in his name invites speculation. The term "dun" was used to refer to buckskin, and possibly palomino. The dilute (or cream) gene may be expressed as either buckskin or palomino and may hide behind black and grey. Although the dilute gene had always been available in the thoroughbred gene pool, as racehorse portraits of this era clearly show, names had not yet been invented to cover the range of the colours expressed.

In the inventory of the Tutbury Stud, which had belonged to King Charles I before his execution in 1649, an entry is recorded for a son of Fantus: "One dun Horse with a black tayle and mane, a starre and a white speck on the nose, 6 yeares oulde". The same inventory includes two offspring of Black Morocco, one a "Dunn filly" and the other a "Yellow filly," which suggests there was a distinction made between those two colours. Others colours recorded in this inventory are black, browne and grey. It may be worthy of note that a number of horses were described as "sorrill" and the term "chesnut" does not appear to be in use as yet [Royal Studs:58]. Given that most of the usual colours are present in this inventory it seems reasonable to speculate that "yellow" may have been utilised at this time to indicate palomino.

In the pedigree of Morgan's Dun, so called in the General Stud Book although his colour is not given, Highflyer's argument that the Darcy Yellow Turk is the same horse as Dodsworth might explain the appearance of the Dun's colour.
Burton's Barb Mare (Family 2)
Dodsworth Mare (f Dodsworth [Darcy's Yellow Turk])
Morgan's Dun (c Helmsley Turk Colt [Darcy's White Turk])

Darcy's Yellow Turk, whatever his colour, exerted a profound influence on the stud book through his well known sons Spanker, Brimmer and the Oglethorpe Arabian.

http://www.bloodlines.net/TB/Summaries/ ... owTurk.htm

[xfactor fan]

I don't think Eclipse was a dilute, however another horse painted by Stubbs Whistle Jacket makes me wonder. He's a kind of burnished gold color--maybe flaxen going on there, but clearly not chestnut.

Anyone got a classic seal brown horse--black with tan highlights--and have had them tested for cream? Is seal brown in TB's really smokey black, or smokey brown? Wouldn't that be a hoot if cream has been hiding in plain sight all along?

[color]

It has been hiding in plain sight all the time I am sure, as the Smoky Black looks black and the smoky brown looks very much like a normal brown and most people do not see the little golden touch on flank, muzzle and around the eyes, it is just too few to recognize.

[angrovestud]

I have been doing plenty of research on Eclipse and I have found several dilute paintings I have gone throught all the painting in royal collection on line where what looks like a palomino in the background on a paiting of a stud. I will publish my findings in the net few weeks on the FB page

[xfactor fan]

http://www.paintinghere.com/painting/Wh ... _7232.html

Stubbs painting of Whistle Jacket.

He's at least a flaxen.

[Linda_d]

Whistle Jacket looks palomino to me.

Flaxen seems very uncommon in TBs. I can't recall ever seeing a flaxen TB either in person or in a picture.

OTOH, I know there is at least one strain of flaxen in Arabs with some of them possibly being mistaken for very dark palominos. Their manes and tails are almost white -- buff colored -- but their bodies are reddish.