Thursday, June 4, 2009

Ozzie's Funny Color

I am finally back and have a minute to sit down. My house is a mess and I probably should be cleaning, but I have to do a quick catch up here. Yesterday I took Big Cowpoke to the airport. He is spending four weeks up in Ohio with his Dad. Four weeks.......is....a......long time. But while he is gone I am going to fly to my parents' home and visit with family. So, hopefully the time will fly by. But now onto Ozzie and his coat of many colors. I will start at the beginning. His Mom. This is Pearl. She is a Thoroughbred mare. (Ignore the horrible angle on that picture!)Her Jockey Club papers say that is is a bay or brown filly. Well, that didn't help much. But she is bay and brown. In the middle of summer, she is a very sun bleached bay. In the fall and spring time, she is a dark bay. Weird mare. And it's not just her winter coat. She sheds out black-ish. Just look back at her pictures of her and Josephine. Pearl is a dark bay there. But in these pictures I would say she is brown. Defiantly, no doubt about it brown. Some even call her color a Seal brown. Which I would not argue about. Ozzie's Sire is our paint stallion, Red. Red is a Sorrel Overo. So, when you breed a Bay/Brown mare to a Sorrel Stallion, you get this! Yeah, what the heck is that? Ozzie has shedded out some strange colors. When he was little he was really orange. I would joke around about how he was a buckskin, but I know, he in no way can be one. His registered APHA papers have him registered as brown. Because this is what Ozzie looked like as a yearling and two year old. This picture was taken on his two year old birthday. Now that is not a Bay horse. His legs are not black. They are more of a brownish color. His mane and tail have black points but they have redish highlights in them. So, I picked brown as his color. But then I sent him to Corey the Cutting Trainer and Ozzie shed out this color! Which to me looks like a Bay colored horse. I am telling you, when I walked up to Ozzie I asked Corey what horse he was saddling. I didn't even recognize him. He got so dark. But there are a few points to him that still leaves me wondering. The nose.......it's not black....it's uhm.....donkey gray. And his eyes do not have a lot of black around them like Bay horses do. His is more like the coloring of a sorrel horse. You can also see how red/blonde his mane is. I call them his highlights. So, with my understanding of Bay horses, they have to have black mane and tails with black points and Ozzie has a brownsih redish mane and tail with some grayish blackish points. So, I registered him as a brown horse. But, wait....there's MORE!! Sydney mentioned something to me that I had never heard of before in a comment. She suggested that Ozzie is a Pangare Bay. I googled it and you know what?! That is what he is! There is no doubt about it! I know you can't register him as a Pangare Bay, but that is the color he is. And that's okay. I think it's pretty cool. And I learned something new. I was a bit scared when I first googled Pangare because the searches kept coming up with pictures of Mules and Donkeys. My father in law always joked around that Pearl was a mule with its ears cut off. So, when I told him about the Pangare gene, he got a good laugh out of it. But, that is what I found out about Ozzie's color. I really didn't know what color he was, that is why I was asking. I have been calling him brown for four years now. But now I know, he is a Pangare Bay. Thanks Sydney!!

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

OK, that was all completely over my head, but they all are beautiful.

Unknown said...

Hmmm...okay but whatever it is - it's pretty.

It's like he's a bay (I am still sticking with that because of the black points and be genetically there is no brown or seal brown - there is just different variations/modifications of the bay gene) with a "red flaxen" mane and tail. But yes a horse that almost seems black and then sheds out brown/bay-like is called a seal brown. I have had two gelding of that color.

TjandMark/AKA PearlandHawkeye said...

So cool. I have been waiting to find out Ozzie's color. My horse has the mule muzzle too. It is cute.

The Wife said...

Sydney is so smart!

But I did say brown! That was pretty good, huh!

BrownEyed Cowgirl said...

Hey that is awesome info! Thanks Andrea...and Sydney for passing that on.

I just learned that my black mare, Queenie, must pass on the sooty(or smutty) gene. Her first foal, Okie was a line-backed bay. She was a dark brown in the winter, a bright bay in the spring and nearly dun colored in the summer. And Frosty, my buckskin out of Queenie, has a "faux" doral stripe and gets a black head and shoulders in the fall and spring.

OMG-That means if I bred her to a palomino, I would stand a good chance of getting a chocolate or sooty palomino!!! GAHHHHH-I did NOT need to have that floating around in my pea-brain.

In regards to Ozzie-you can just tell people he is a horse of another color.;)

Unknown said...

Your welcome. Glad I could help.

Pangare is a gene known for causing lighter hairs on the legs, mane/tail and especially the light muzzle. It's actually one of the oldest known modifiers in equine colour as all prezwalski horses have it and wild asses etc. I just got done doing equine genetics, a very challenging subject but rewarding none the less.

Grey Horse Matters said...

Well what ever color he is he's beautiful.

Mrs. Mom said...

Hey Andrea- I found out by accident that "Ocean Potion" sunburn stuff soothes the ant bites better than anything else I've tried. Put that on Wrecker that night, and he didnt scratch or cry or fuss with them! (His feet were all swollen and hot before I put it on, and in the morning they were a lot better!)

Squeeze Cowpokette from me, and tell her to shy far away from those freakin ants!!

kdwhorses said...

I've never heard of that color before! Learn something new everyday!

Fantastyk Voyager said...

I learned something new today. Pangare bay! very cool! Thanks Andrea and Sydney for the information.

Unknown said...

He is very cute.

Another reason why the black hair on his mane, tail and legs are so sparse is that he may also be a wild bay on top of having pangare. That would explain his chestnut highlights since wild bay is the most restrictive of black pigment.

Just throwing in my 2 cents ^_^ he is very adorable!