1962-Voice Of The Tennessee Walking Horse 1962 April Voice | Page 15

Voice of the Tennessee Walking Horse
13
COLOR INHERITANCE IN HORSES TRACED TO DOMINANT FACTORS
(Editor's Note—The Voice is indebted to
Professor J. B. Floyd, a veteran teacher of
Agriculture and horse owner of Campbell,
Texas, for this interesting article. BAG.)
For many years horse breeders in
all countries have selected and bred
horses on the basis of color. Yet much
is still to be done before all the facts
and theories about color inheritance
in horses are proven.
In this article I shall attempt to
give some theories advanced by repu­
table geneticists and breeders, and
some facts gleaned from stud books.
Such information, however, is always
open to many errors. There can be
lack of a knowledge of horse colors
by the applicant for registration,
changes in color during the growth of
the colt and just plain mistakes and
oversight. Then too, the investigators
may not have had access to all the
relevant facts.
As an example, I know of horses
registered as chestnuts that were actu­
ally true dark mahogany bays, black
horses and brown horses that turned
grey when mature. Many Palominos
are red sorrel Is when born and turn
yellow as yearlings or two-year-olds.
Few breeds have been able to perfect
a color pattern that breeds true. The
exceptions are the Suffolk and other
chestnut breeds.
It is probably safe to assume that
most all American breeds that origi­
nated in this country are heterogene­
ous for coat color. They carry the
color factor for several colors, and
these recessive factors may show up
at anytime later.
Difficult To Eliminate
Breeds that require a certain color
for registration will have much diffi­
culty in eliminating these hidden re­
cessive color factors. Until they are
able to do this, breeders of colored
horses will have to discard many good
Can You Mate Roans?
(Continued from Page 12)
of a light color, even with just white
legs, for instance, develop a tendency
to have tender skin. They cannot
stand exposure to die climates of
places like Mexico or South America,
etc., where Walking horses have
gained great popularity as plantation
workers.
We here see how a simple question
can bring out much information of
interest to all who read the Voice of
the Tennessee Walking Horse.
r—
Merry White Mischief, 2-year-old solid white mare with her owner, J. B. Floyd of
Campbell, Texas, seems to illustrate well Floyd’s article on color inheritance