Subtle flaxens?

[Arctictea]

I haven't been here for a while, but got that itch to breed pixel horses. When logging in I found something odd in my old pastures (I'm sure I've been asking about it years ago, but as I remember there was no clear conclusion).

I have turkmenes straight from adoption center that give very visible flaxens (as long as paired with visible flaxens).
Here are some examples
King Proof 2

King (AC Turkmene) x Flaxen Flusher (AC North african barb)

Tangent Proof

Tangent Dune (AC Turkmene) x Flaxen Flusher (AC North african barb)

I seem to have two whole pastures with horses like this, sometimes with more nested pedigrees:

Proof 8

Kinga 8 (King x Random AC Turkmene Mare) + Tangent Proof (Tangent Dune x Flaxen Flusher)
So this horse is 75% Turkmene. No of the three AC Turkmenes are visible flaxens to my eye.

Now, the problems I have with this are two:
1) Flaxen is not supposed to be in turkmenes*
2) Flaxen is supposed to be recessive
*According to this post.

If both are correct, these foals should not be possible?
If flaxen does not exist within Turkmenes, and it requires two copies to express, then an AC turkmenes should not be able to give flaxen foals at all.

I have been keeping experimenting with King

This AC Turkmene stallion has been bred to visible flaxens three times - all three became flaxen foals.
I have bred him to five pure Turkmene mares, three direct from AC and two with AC parents.
They got 7 foals, that all have been proven flaxen carriers by breeding to visible flaxens.
I bred those 7 foals, proven flaxen carriers back to King.
They got 25 foals, and as far as I can see none are flaxen. Which does not seem believable, as 25% of those foals should be visible flaxens.

So by now I suspect that flaxen can be very, very subtle (the alternative is that either flaxen is not inherited as we think, or the universe is playing with me). I warmly invite anyone of you to check through those 25 foals and see if any looks like a flaxen to you - and why. Maybe even King himself is actually an subtle flaxen?

The 25 someone-should-be-flaxen-foals:
Foal 1, Foal 2, Foal 3, Foal 4, Foal 5
Foal 6, Foal 7, Foal 8, Foal 9, Foal 10
Foal 11,Foal 12, Foal 13, Foal 14,Foal 15
Foal 16, Foal 17, Foal 18, Foal 19, Foal 20
Foal 21, Foal 22, Foal 23, Foal 24, Foal 25

[Silverine]

There are flaxens whose manes and tails appear to match their body color but are just a little bit "brighter". King appears to be one of those. It looks to me like almost all of the 25 foals got it as well.

I believe what may have been meant by flaxen not appearing in Turks is that you won't get the bright silver flaxen. You can still get a flaxen mane and tail, but it won't be the loud type that most people.

I would suggest breeding the foals to a loud flaxen to see what you get.

I believe you know more on flaxen than I do.

[BlackOak2]

...

That guide is useful, but has some flaws that the author has never corrected.

Although it doesn't specifically say that turks have flaxen, I think by produce flaxen from AC turks, you've proven quite clearly that AC turks DO carry flaxen. Plus, I think I remember quite distinctly seeing flaxen AC truks in the AC. But currently I don't see any there, so I can't prove that... so maybe I'm wrong with seeing them.

I don't remember the last time 'we' might've talked about it, or was otherwise discussed in the forums.

Silverine and I were just talking about flaxen, literally yesterday. I had been saying I wanted to post a topic that flaxen exists in many forms and offer some visible proof.

So, just like dun and some of the other genes, we can actually have a 'cryptic' form of flaxen. Appears practically the same color as the mane body, when clearly, both parents are flaxen.

Flaxen is indeed recessive. Two clearly flaxen parents can only produce flaxen offspring, regardless of what it looks like...
And now that I'm talking about it, I do vaguely recall a flaxen conversation. And if memory serves, you were trying to pin it down more accurately to just how cryptic it can get and to prove or disprove whether your chestnuts were flaxen or if there was perhaps something else going on.

After all, your horse's flaxen does look just a little off. Although much of it could easily be attributed to sooty genes.

AC turks may be subtle flaxens. And may be one of the carriers of subtle flaxen genes. Our admins have given specific varieties of certain genes to only certain AC breeds, so it's not a far fetch to assume that all of our color genes have been added in similar ways. Much like the sooty genes and the Lp genes.

But I do not recall exactly what your project was with the flaxen suspicion, so I cannot help you there.
There is also the chance that you stallion King has just rolled the dice for throwing his single flaxen around. It is, 50/50 after all. Without gene testing available, we can only make the assumption that he definitely has at least one flaxen gene and may be a carrier of two, as a cryptic expression.

[Arctictea]

Thank you both for the quick and good answers!

I believe you are spot on that the flaxens can be so quiet so they look like non-flaxen, and that the "flaxen brightness" genes are spread out among the AC breeds (with Turkmenes getting the silent ones). I've also been thinking if the "bright red" manes/tails were an flaxen expression, but once I started thinking that all my chestnuts looked like flaxen to me and it was very confusing.

I think turkmenes might be the worst breed to check for flaxens as they come with shine, and sooty, and strong red base chestnut colours, and don't seem to get the useful lighter feet. King's mane is darker than his neck, but his tail is lighter than his rump, probably due to the strong shading from shine.

I've bred some of the foals to loud flaxens, and roughly half of them gave loud flaxen foals immediately. I strongly suspect that the rest will with repeated breedings, but I'm not sure it proves much, as carriers would do the same.
With an bigger pool one could begin argue probabilites and statistics, but as BlackOak notes, there is an much easier way to get subtle-but-known flaxens, and appearently I've already done that (but forgot ).

In my not-very-well-named pasture called "caspian area" I have an AC foundation pair that now I'm pretty sure both are visible flaxens.
Scenic Mane, clear flaxen

Here Heartbeat, flaxen if you look closely on both mane/tail and feet

And their offspring that range from clear flaxen...


To cryptic flaxens.
"Bright mane/tail" variety

"Hidden by sooty" variety


It's interesting that the "lighter feet" are difficult to note on the bright variety. Maybe the hue/brightness of the mane/tail is the same as on the feet, so if the flaxen hue is too similar with the base, it just melts together?

And here's one I would never have thought of as flaxen.

[BlackOak2]

...

-_- Hmmm... ill-named barns and pastures... I think we've all been guilty of that. In fact, I'm guilty of that right now!

From what I've noticed with flaxen genes, the color on the feet does generally appear to follow the mane and tail coloration. Or at least follows the 'strength'. Although I think I do have one that has a brightness factor that differs slightly from mane and tail brightness... let's see if I still have it.

***********
I have four chestnuts without pangare and with leg flaxen, with varying strengths and brightnesses. So, although it does kind of look like the strength between the mane and tail is shared, it does appear that the brightness between the leg and the mane & tail can be different. I don't know if that's because of the design of the leg flaxen is because it fades as it travels upward, or if it was actually designed to have a different expression available.

As a note, these images may disappear, they're for a current project that has a high cull rate.





Horse links:
https://www.horseworldonline.net/horse/profile/3433938
https://www.horseworldonline.net/horse/profile/3436576
https://www.horseworldonline.net/horse/profile/3435079
https://www.horseworldonline.net/horse/profile/3435108

[BlackOak2]

As a note, the strength factor I attribute between how strong the flaxen comes through on the mane & tail and how high it's visible on the legs.