"Sooty" gene on palomino -- please join in!

[Silverine]

Ahh thank you. It does resemble the darkening that happens with the sooties though, doesn't it?

It is more of a different kind, varnish can affect a horse a little different, sooty darkens while varnish can "bronze" a horse or make it look more grey or sometimes greenish which is what yours did.

Just wanted to jump in real quick. Varnishing and bronzing are two different processes, and this effect is a third. The effect seen on this palomino is (what those of us on the Leopard Pattern thread like to call) Lp Sooty. Bronzing affects any black coloration on a horse, turning it varying shades of red with the horse being it's most red at 4 years of age, then gradually return to black over the rest of the horse's lifetime. (Post on bronzing is here.) Varnish is the phenomenon where any part of a horse that is not covered in white or part of the spot pattern gradually greys out very much like a progressive roaning. Lp Sooty is the process during which non-black parts of a horse gradually darken to black. Lp Sooty can affect the entire body, or only portions of it, as seen on the palomino above.

[Wild_Brumby]

Lotta Butta

I have this girl who's the sootiest I've seen so far. Her sire is an interesting one. Sooty on his back and mealy on his belly.

[Tjigra]

A nicely sooty Palomino. He started out light, but took a turn for darkening around the age of three, and it is nicely seen in his mane turning from white to bluish-grey.
What's interesting though, from his 8 offspring, there is only one typical sooty (the rest are rather young though). However, he has a flaxen chestnut daughter, who is a very dark shade. I now wander if she's just dark, or is that sooty in action - however, if it's sooty, it's a very early case.