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Post by Snowfrost on Dec 31, 2011 12:29:42 GMT -5
The Gray gene, or "G", acts upon the base color of a horse in time. Think of it in terms of your own hair. As you age, your hair starts losing pigment and grays out. At the end, your hair is white or light gray. The same basically goes with the graying out process on horses.
From this gene, we gain several slang terms for the different stages. "Rose Gray" is probably the most typical. This generally occurs when a horse of a bay base (Ee/Aa or the like) is undergoing the graying out process. Graying out usually doesn't happen evenly, and usually takes a few years to complete. It does, however, start one horses as they are foals.
A horse with a heterozygous set of gray will pass on either a dominant or recessive gene from the category. Horses with at least one dominant G will be a gray horse.
Because body type has an affect on the graying process (namely when speaking of arabians, who are bred to gray out faster than most other breeds), those of the hotblooded build are likely to lose their coloring before those of the warm or coldblooded build. Any horse, of any base, with any combination of markings can be gray. When making a horse's application, the only thing you must note is that the horse is a "insert color here"-based Gray. If the horse is already "white" (grayed out completely), then you can tell us that in parentheses to make that clear. Otherwise, it is just expected that your horse is in one of the stages of gray. In the end, all horses will end up being a pale "white" color. It just happens at different speeds. All gray horses have black skin, as well, so do not confuse them for dominant white, cremello, or painted horses.
Usually, foals with a gray gene will start showing signs early. This is most easily seen around the eyes and muzzle area, as well as near the flanks and dock.
x | x | x | x
Above are some of the stages of a black (or similarly a dark coated horse) horse who is graying out.
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Above are a few of the stages of a bay (or similarly-colored) horse who is graying out. The final image here is called a Flea-bitten gray, which will be discussed later.
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Above are a few images of a chestnut (or similarly colored) horse going gray.
x | x | x | x
Above are some images of variously painted and based horses that are experiencing the stages of going gray.
Flea-bitten Gray occurs when some of the hairs from the base color (the color the horse was born, the color he/she was before going gray) tick around the body. Just like it humans, every single strand of hair doesn't always lose its pigment. Flea-bitten Grays can range in intensity, though most look like the one linked. There is no special indicator for the Flea-bitten to occur, so a horse with GG and one with Gg both have chances of resulting in one.
Blood Marks (x | x | x), much like in the way Flea-bitten works, are when hairs cluster together and remain untouched by the graying affect. This, similarly as with Flea-bitten, does not take a special activating gene to make it happen. The base color of the horse shows through in the Blood Mark(s), and can occur anywhere on the body, and at any intensity.
Slang Terms for grays are vast, and usually only target a stage in the graying process. They are, in fact, not colors in their own right. Simply stages. Below are the most common, and what they are genetically:
Dapple Gray is actually a stage in gray where darker-skinned (black, brown, bay, and their variants [blue roan, grullo, etc.]) begin (or are in the middle of) the largest part of the graying process -- where most of the hair is turning gray in bulk. The dapples occur from the way the hair's graying. The patterns, themselves, are quite beautiful in my opinion -- unfortunately, it doesn't last.
Rose Gray is actually a stage in gray where lighter-haired (bays, namely, though chestnuts can give the same effect) horses go through a similar bulk-graying process. Rose Gray and Dapple Gray can look similar, though Rose Gray gets its name from the brown/reddish tints in the coat (which come from having a bay or chestnut-type coat, or the variants). This, as well, can be quite beautiful. It, too, does not last.
Steel Gray is actually when a dark-skinned (usually black, grullo, or blue roan) horse begins the graying process. It produces a steely color along the body, and usually stays for a decent length of time before the bulk-graying process begins.
Mulberry Gray is actually when a horse whose mane and tail has bleached or is reddened from being a chestnut or smoky black (or similarly coated) that is going through the graying process. As you can see, the mane and tail tend to stay unaffected by the graying process, but usually it too grays out eventually.
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