I forgot how annoying real horse color genes are, lol

[sunandshadow]

It has been a few years since I played a game with realistic horse color genetics, and I had completely forgotten how much it annoyed me that they work nothing whatsoever like mixing paint or simple layering. Wouldn't it be so much more logical if one red allele and one black allele made a brown horse, and a pair of black alleles plus at least one cream allele made a gray horse? Or if mealy was a pale version of a bay gene?

[BlackOak2]

It has been a few years since I played a game with realistic horse color genetics, and I had completely forgotten how much it annoyed me that they work nothing whatsoever like mixing paint or simple layering. Wouldn't it be so much more logical if one red allele and one black allele made a brown horse, and a pair of black alleles plus at least one cream allele made a gray horse? Or if mealy was a pale version of a bay gene?

Logical to the eye and the training one undertakes for paint colors, perhaps. But red and black doesn't make brown, even in paint. The odd aside to this is that a red horse and a black horse can make a brown foal.

Genes aren't that difficult to understand, but it does take a little thought.

Here's a quick rundown that generally sinks in. In this Bay and Brown are the same.

Red is weak to black.
Brown is weak to red.
Black is weak to brown.

Those are your basic coats.

The other ones run like this:
Cream makes brown turn blonde, the more cream, the more blonde.
Gray makes coats fade to gray in color.
Champagne creates freckles.

That ends the bare basics of coat colors.

As far as mealy goes, many of us remember mealy better if we think 'Mule'. Mules often have this pale belly:

This is pangare, aka mealy. This horse isn't a mule, but it's a solid picture of pangare.

[BlackOak2]

Color isn't necessary to learn in this game. So learn it only if you want. If you choose to ignore it, then ignore it.