HOROUGHBRED
BREED INFORMATION
HOROUGHBRED
BREED INFORMATION
By Didi Hornberger
“ Thoroughbreds with Rare/Unusual Coloring “
I grew up with Thoroughbreds. You know – the “Bay-Black-Chestnut-Dark Bay/Brown-Gray/Roan” breed. The “5 Colors” breed. Fixed in my mind, always – “No other colors are accepted into The Jockey Club Registry”, for a Thoroughbred Horse.
The first time my eyes were opened on this issue was with the Pennsylvanian bred Thoroughbred, “Milkie”. Milkie was a palomino! Upon reading Milkie’s background, it seemed that his owners had to jump through all kinds of procedural hoops to have their palomino Thoroughbred accepted as a true blooded race horse. (This was back before DNA testing for exact Thoroughbred parentage on first blood samples, and then hair, was being done.) Indeed, Milkie was the proverbial golden color of a “newly minted gold coin”. However, he was registered as a Thoroughbred, and did produce a number of palomino offspring. But – at that time, there was a “catch”.
Since The Jockey Club refused for years to refer to any Thoroughbred color other than other one of the “Basic 5” prescribed coat colors, Milkie was originally Jockey Club registered as a “Light, light chestnut!”
I have personally seen some strange colors in Thoroughbreds over the years, and being fascinated with the genetics of coat color, I’ve long pursued the study of these strikingly colored individuals, whenever possible. However I was totally flabbergasted to discover that whatever color the Jockey Club calls them, REGISTERED Thoroughbred horses actually come in a entire range of unusual colors, including buckskin, loud pinto, extreme sabino, bay dilute, white sabino, Perlino, cremello, smoky cream, black sabino, brindle, “white speckled”, white, and others! Check out these fabulous websites of “Cool and Unusual Thoroughbred Colors” – they will knock your socks off!
http://www.angelfire.com/on3/TrueColoursFarm/Cool_and_Unusual_Thoroughbreds.html
http://www.bloodhorse.com/NOW/Breeding/PedigreeAnalysis/49606.aspx
http://www.shadowmountainstables.com/serv01.htm
Now – for Model Horse enthusiasts – there’s also a catch. While your eyeballs will tell you one thing about a loud pinto or other unusual colored Thoroughbred, you will still find “registered colors” which do not agree with what your eyeballs are telling you. Recently The Jockey Club reformed their “Basic 5” colors to a new “Basic 7,” to include “white”, and “palomino” in their acceptable registry list of Thoroughbred coat colors. (Surprise!) Milkie’s registration certificate, which originally listed him as a “chestnut”, now shows him correctly as a palomino. Curiously, the Jockey Club registration certificate on the very LOUD bay pinto Thoroughbred, “Tri-Chrome”, shows him as a “bay overo”, even though officially, the “overo” color pattern does not exist in the Thoroughbred registry. At one time, Tri Chrome would have been registered simply as a “bay”. The astonishing “Catch A Bird,” a brilliant and bizarre brindle, is actually registered as a “Dark Bay/Brown Brindle”, another off-breed “pattern”. However, “Puchilingui”, who in maturity ended up as an extreme sabino color, is still Jockey Club registered as a “bay”. (He actually looks like a “bay lost in a snowstorm”!)
Prior to the days of DNA testing, the Jockey Club registry used the basic solid coat color for registration purposes – Bay, Black, Chestnut, Dark Bay/Brown, or Gray/Roan. Period. According to the Jockey Club, a wild pattern or color still “may not exist” in the Thoroughbred registry – but if his Thoroughbred bloodlines prove true, that loud-colored animal may be a registered Thoroughbred just the same even if his registration certificate only states that he’s a “bay, black, brown, chestnut”, or gray.”
Exactly what color is a “Brown” horse, anyway? Think about it. By definition, any “bay” horse will have black points. Different breed registries have different interpretations of the color “Brown”. The Jockey Club defines “Brown” as “brown, with tan areas seen only in the flanks and/or muzzle. The mane, tail, and lower portion of the legs are always black, unless white markings are present.” (The above mentioned “tan” areas can also be yellow, or reddish.) Haven’t they just re-stated BAY coloring??? I should expect a “brown” horse would literally be brown all over, without any black or darker colored points. Ah! Points to ponder! But for Thoroughbred purposes, “brown” is considered to be a dark body color with a lighter colored muzzle and flanks.
If we get into a genetics discussion we know that “gray” and roan” are two entirely separate manifestations of a darker body color, whose color mechanics are in no way related. A gray horse is born a dark, solid color, and grays out with age. A roan horse is born roan, and remains roan throughout its lifetime. However, The Jockey Club has never differentiated between the two, so they just “lump” all Thoroughbred’s with an excess if white hairs in their dark colored coats as “Gray/Roan”. There’s also the caveat about there being “no true roan horses” in the Thoroughbred genetic pool. (But go check out “Show Me The Moolah”, by Cutlass Reality, out of Sparkle Plenty!))
So – the “catch” for Model Horse showing purposes is to first decide which of their current “7 coat colors” “works correctly, according to Jockey Club registry specifications”, for the model Thoroughbred you are showing. Then, if your Thoroughbred model’s color falls outside the “current permissible boundary” of the Jockey Club’s “7 colors”, you will need to DOCUMENT that color with your show model. A clear photo or picture of a live Thoroughbred in the unusual color of the model you are showing is a “must” for documentation on extreme Thoroughbred colors. Yes, those lovely wild Thoroughbred colors CAN be shown legitimately as Thoroughbred model horses! This doesn’t mean your model horse judge will necessarily love them or even like them, but if properly documented, these colorful Thoroughbred’s cannot be disqualified from a Thoroughbred class on the basis of “unacceptable color” in the registry. And documentation will give your judge a correct standard to judge them by. Personally I find the unusual Thoroughbred colors to be fascinating, and if the Thoroughbred conformation is there, as a judge I find them totally acceptable. Will “wild coloring” give those models an “edge”, in a Thoroughbred class? Perhaps – perhaps not. However, fully documented unusually colored Thoroughbred’s are totally “legitimate”, to be shown as such.
Same goes for blue eyes. (Yes, Virginia – there are some blue-eyed Thoroughbreds, too!) But you will also need to document your blue-eyed Thoroughbred models!
Apparently, “solid-colored” models must be considered as “boring” by the model horse manufacturers, because it always seems easier to market a wild-colored pinto or Appaloosa model than a plain-colored one. A huge percentage of the “Thoroughbred” model horses are therefore rarely painted in the old “basic 5” Thoroughbred colors. And this can be frustrating to the hobbyist who is looking for that “one outstanding Thoroughbred” which will place well in a Thoroughbred class at a model horse show. Ditto other breeds, such as the Morgan and the American Saddlebred. While wild or loud color should not in itself ever take precedence over correct breed conformation, loud coloring should no longer be discounted in a breed class where such color is actually documentable to the Thoroughbred breed. When “the loud-colored horse” is a registered Thoroughbred, even if the color on his registration certificate may only be one of the “Jockey Club basic 7”, if his color is documentable, he’s legitimate, to correctly show as a Thoroughbred.
Now, Hobbyists – go have fun with those “spicy” Thoroughbreds!
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