Figuring out another "pink" horse

[stickers]

Being that this is the only horse that looks remotely like this in a long line of very typical looking bays, chestnuts, duns, and pangares, I was hoping to get some help making a judgement call on what all is combining to make this girl look like... this. What happened here??

As far as I know, aside from some flaxen, the genes listed above are basically the only ones that should be bouncing around her family line. That being said, the range of pangare has been pretty wide, and the dun can get pretty cryptic. So, I've lost all ability to tell how much of what I'm looking at on her is dun vs. no dun, some amount of pangare, flaxen, something else entirely, etc.

It might be impossible to tell for sure what all is going on with her, but I'm hoping for sets of more experienced eyes to make their best guesses. I know, for example, that I often miss subtle signs of dun, and am always finding out that I don't actually know all that much about the various ways that certain genes can look here. Any help would be great, so I can at least figure out where she belongs in my breeding project, haha.

Fancy Doubts

[Shadow Scar]

To be completely honest its extremely difficult to tell. However, I'd say her pink tone is caused by the combination of both dun and pangare. I personally have never had a true "Pink" horse that actually shows dun markings on them making me think it has to be cryptic to show the pink tone? BlackOak2 has posted that there can be several combinations that cause pink horses.

Pink foals are most often caused by the combinations of extreme pangare and dun, combined. But we can also get pink foals from other dilute combinations (as well as the inclusion of Lp fading the coat). Extreme dun can give us a pink-ish coloration as well as extreme pangare, both alone (pangare does a slightly better job of it). Double and triple dilutes can also force this coloration to appear.

[stickers]

To be completely honest its extremely difficult to tell. However, I'd say her pink tone is caused by the combination of both dun and pangare. I personally have never had a true "Pink" horse that actually shows dun markings on them making me think it has to be cryptic to show the pink tone? BlackOak2 has posted that there can be several combinations that cause pink horses.

Interesting! ...I hadn't thought that she had either extreme pangare or extreme dun, and almost certain that no dilution genes (including LP) snuck into her lines. But I think I have some extreme (at least what I guess would be extreme) pangare stallions lying around somewhere, so I could try there and see what happens.

Out of curiosity, have you ever had a pink horse come from bay/black/etc, or has it only been chestnut?

[Shadow Scar]

Out of curiosity, have you ever had a pink horse come from bay/black/etc, or has it only been chestnut?

Yes actually from what I can tell it effects only red pigment so chestnuts, bay, and browns to a degree can be pink. Bays can almost appear to be buckskins with how light they can get. Pink browns that I've had are born with a grey/pink color and fade out to a dusty grey and then will end up like a normal brown with only the red points being slightly lighter than normal. No Blacks I've produced have looked even the slightest bit different however, when crossed back into my lines they can produce pink horses.
Bay Pinky

Bay Pinky

Newborn
1/2 Year Old
Adult

[stickers]

Yes actually from what I can tell it effects only red pigment so chestnuts, bay, and browns to a degree can be pink. Bays can almost appear to be buckskins with how light they can get. Pink browns that I've had are born with a grey/pink color and fade out to a dusty grey and then will end up like a normal brown with only the red points being slightly lighter than normal. No Blacks I've produced have looked even the slightest bit different however, when crossed back into my lines they can produce pink horses.

Fascinating...

So, I went digging around in my random pink girl's pedigree to see if I could spot anything interesting, and I noticed two things. One, I didn't realize that she's related to this guy: Pinky. And two, one of the ancestors that repeats several times in her family tree is this mare: Bully Bull.

A thing I'm wondering is if one of the shades of pangare in particular is helping the "pink" look in at least some of these cases. You know how there's different shades of pangare like there are shades of flaxen etc. With all of the pangare that I've been working with lately, I've been noticing how some of them seem quite pink, while others are much more yellow or white.

This is Bully Bull's baby picture compared with another horse. The pink vs yellow is visible in all of their pictures, but it's easier to see as newborns, before the sooty and bay and other shaders kick in.




So, yeah. I wonder if the rosy shades of pangare are one of the important "ingredients" for a pink horse. I could also be completely off-base!

[Shadow Scar]

Huh, I hadn't thought about how the shades of pangare could be affecting anything before. That might need some testing probably by finding mares with these different shades that have no connection to existing pink lines and breeding into pinks. Test breeding them is one the the most surprising and yet confusing things. I've crossed out my pinks to tons of outside horses either from players or the AC and some throw pinks every time while others never do and I haven't the faintest idea why.

[stickers]

Huh, I hadn't thought about how the shades of pangare could be affecting anything before. That might need some testing probably by finding mares with these different shades that have no connection to existing pink lines and breeding into pinks. Test breeding them is one the the most surprising and yet confusing things. I've crossed out my pinks to tons of outside horses either from players or the AC and some throw pinks every time while others never do and I haven't the faintest idea why.

It's taking all of my willpower to not veer off into *another* rabbit hole, side tangent, unrelated breeding project. I swear I will complete this one (at least enough to enter the AC Exmoor project officially) before I start another one!!

I just want to test everything...

[stickers]

♥

So, that stallion you pointed out in my herd that also looked pretty pink as a foal and suggested breeding him to Fancy Doubts... I did it. And look what I got.

Fanciful Rain

[Shadow Scar]

So, that stallion you pointed out in my herd that also looked pretty pink as a foal and suggested breeding him to Fancy Doubts... I did it. And look what I got.

That's a gorgeous colt! I can't wait to see what his adult coat will look like.

[stickers]

That's a gorgeous colt! I can't wait to see what his adult coat will look like.

My current guess is that he'll look more or less like his dad. I'll ping you when he grows up and share how it went.

And out of curiosity, do you have any use for new "pink" blood? With my current breeding project going on, I probably won't have a use for him.