# How to get an appaloosa foal....



## Andyy123 (19 February 2011)

What is the best way i can go about breeding an appaloosa foal??? What colours shall i mix and what colours shouldn't i mix?!?!

Any help will be greatly apprieciated


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## whirlwindhorses (19 February 2011)

You need to use a true Fewspot or Snowcap Appaloosa stallion to guarantee spotted pattern on a solid mare (or a solid colour stallion on a Fewspot/Snowcap mare).


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## V1NN (19 February 2011)

I just bought my spotty foaly  over 2yrs ago now and he is my pride and joy , best of luck .


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## Andyy123 (19 February 2011)

Thanks Whirlwind Horses! i did enquire about buying your Whirlwind Mohawk but he had already been sold!


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## flaxen (19 February 2011)

Hi Andyy123,
I am debbies friend, mohawks sale fell through due to no fault on debbies or mohawks part and he is currently back up for sale. If you are still interested in him then give her a ring asap. I also have a foal by debbies appaloosa out of my arab. He is a loud nr leopard spot.


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## JoBird (19 February 2011)

What a stunning foal flaxen - he looks tricoloured - amazing markings! 

I will be so gutted if I get a solid foal from either of my mares or just a vague varnish but it does seem such a lottery!


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## sugarlump121 (19 February 2011)

Andyy123 why not just buy the foal? That  way you can choose exactly what you want as I have seen horses that're supposed to be spotty create foals with only spotty characteristics (mottled skin/ stripy hooves).

I also liked Mohawk  but already have a rising 4 year old spotty knabstrupper.


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## flaxen (19 February 2011)

here is a picture of mohawk taken a couple of weeks ago.


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## Andyy123 (20 February 2011)

Yes he looks so nice!!! My four year old is up for sale atm on horsemart and cannot buy anything else until he is sold so fingers crossed he will sell sooon (yn)


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## Smile_and_Wave (20 February 2011)

to get an appaloosa foal use an appaloosa stallion but you wont necessarily get spots, what you want to know is how to get spots but you should never breed just to get spots, a good apploosa is a good appaloosa regaurdless of the colour it is, mine is jet black and is a damn site better than a lot of the spotted ones


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## EAST KENT (21 February 2011)

Fairly pointless to try for a spotty and get a solid in my opinion,so I used a few spot last year.


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## Smile_and_Wave (21 February 2011)

EAST KENT said:



			Fairly pointless to try for a spotty and get a solid in my opinion,so I used a few spot last year.
		
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yes but i rather have my solid mare with brilliant conformation and movement with my ideal breeding rather than a spotted horse with rubbish breeding and badly put together, which often many of them are

With the exception of Sully Cortez and August Skyhawk both of which are nice horses but i wouldnt use on my mare (no offence, they throw nice stock but wouldnt like them on my mare) there isnt a few spot stallion i know of in the country that is worth using or are equal in quality to my mare


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## whirlwindhorses (21 February 2011)

What is your mares breeding Smile_and_Wave? and can we see a photo of her please?


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## Toast (22 February 2011)

You need a fewspot to a solid.. breeding spotty to spotty wont always get you a spotty!
More often than not, people buy appy's because of their colouring, which they are renowned for. So i can see why people may not want to buy a solid appy, you could just buy another breed of solid horse..
x


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## Smile_and_Wave (22 February 2011)

i didnt purposely want a solid she was just the best horse that was for sale at the time


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## amy_b (22 February 2011)

Smile_and_Wave said:



			yes but i rather have my solid mare with brilliant conformation and movement with my ideal breeding rather than a spotted horse with rubbish breeding and badly put together, which often many of them are

surely that applies to a lot of horses in the country, not just appaloosa's? I dont think you have to substitute colour for quality and performance in any sphere now adays, at the end of the day if you want an appaloosa you're going to do your best to get one, otherwise you may aswell use a solid stallion.
		
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## KarynK (22 February 2011)

Solid appaloosas are actually very important to the breed for colour reasons as well and now all UK registers of spotted horses are breed societies not colour registers.   

The importance of solids are clear, if you breed two coloured apps together you get progressively more white and no spots, it is these solids that produce the leopards that everyone wants so they are in fact crucial to keeping the spots. 

There are some very old foundation lines in American Appaloosas that appear to be homozygous for the leopard spotting pattern that when bred together do not produce the snowcaps and fewspots, but of course with them more solids are produced as the pattern may be homozygous but the extent of white is not. These however as they mix with the whites are getting rare, so it is the solids that will keep the loud spots.  

Today the nature of the appaloosa patterns are extremes, white and solid!


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## haycroft (23 February 2011)

KarynK said:



			Solid appaloosas are actually very important to the breed for colour reasons as well and now all UK registers of spotted horses are breed societies not colour registers.   

The importance of solids are clear, if you breed two coloured apps together you get progressively more white and no spots, it is these solids that produce the leopards that everyone wants so they are in fact crucial to keeping the spots. 

There are some very old foundation lines in American Appaloosas that appear to be homozygous for the leopard spotting pattern that when bred together do not produce the snowcaps and fewspots, but of course with them more solids are produced as the pattern may be homozygous but the extent of white is not. These however as they mix with the whites are getting rare, so it is the solids that will keep the loud spots.  

Today the nature of the appaloosa patterns are extremes, white and solid!
		
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thanks for answering a Q that i was going to answer about solid appaloosas
find this very interesting
didnt realise if all appys had to be spotted/marking and if there were solids


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## magic104 (23 February 2011)

haycroft said:



			thanks for answering a Q that i was going to answer about solid appaloosas
find this very interesting
didnt realise if all appys had to be spotted/marking and if there were solids
		
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My sisters mare is a solid bay from 2 app parents R Mellow Kinsman x Blythwind Showgirl
she herself then produced spots in her offspring from Prince's Playboy (Playboys Premier), Blythwind Jazzman (Alicorne Rhythumnblues), Ready Money (Jazzy Money Bags) & a bay by Ulrich's Buckaroo (Alicorne Bagoas).


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## gypsy cob (23 February 2011)

allso i would like to know what colour solid mare is best.


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## KarynK (23 February 2011)

gypsy cob said:



			allso i would like to know what colour solid mare is best.

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There was some early research to suggest that chestnut lets more white through than black based, but since that research did not include the most significant member of the immediate family studied I would be very sceptical as to the validity of the study for all appaloosas.

Of course if you do use a bay/brown or black then you have to make sure they do not carry chestnut or their mate doesn't if you don't want chestnut!

On a slightly different note

There was a paper in the 60's written for the ApHC where the author quite rightly pointed out the danger of introducing grey to appaloosa colours and was against using dilutes because of the lack of contrast with the white, but I have seen some nice dilutes and am toying with using a nice working cow horse champagne stallion this year,  so I don't subscribe to the dilute theory.  If I'm honest it's the snowcap pattern and the virulent form of varnish that perhaps pose a threat to loosing the spots!!  I also disagree with the US policy of penalising breeders of solid appaloosas with higher registration fees encouraging the production of more and more white.

With a lot of statements involving appaloosa coat patterns people tend to conveniently forget the input from the mare!  So a lot of claims of 100% colour producers are mainly from appaloosa or appaloosa bred solids and not complete outcross true solid mates.  Since appaloosa coat patterns do naturally produce solids even the most potent colour producer can produce just characteristics or something born solid that varnishes out with age, like one of mine is doing.

I know of a true fewspot mare born all white with a few spots who produced solid's to another appaloosa and loud leopard to solid outcross stallions.  Even individual extended white and white born horses will produce slightly different patterns on solid outcross horses when bred to enough of them.

In an ideal world a lot more would be learnt from taking some extended snowcaps and true fewspots and breeding them to 50-100 minimally marked mares each, then you would get a really good picture of their individual genetic make up for patterns and white distribution.  My guess is that they will be slightly different.  

BUT solid appaloosas may not actually be solid, there is a mare owned by a forum member who  appears to be a solid brown mare (Hi Jana) she was bred to a brown TB from a conservatively marked TB family and produced an outcrop varnish appaloosa, who cropped out as a yearling I think.  She then produced another to a different stallion.  I had her owner crawling around her private regions and she found just a tiny spot of pink skin.  Traditionally these have been registered as "Non Characteristics" as they do not meet the  minimal marking requirements (striped feet, sclera and mottled skin).  Stripy feet result from mottled skin but appaloosas can also have striped teeth showing that the mottled skin can be internal!!  From this example it is clear that these Soild Apps can actually contribute!!!

The new genetic test will be for either this "breed gene" or a nearby marker gene inherited with it so I suspect if tested this mare will prove to be heterozygous for it which will cause some registration shake-ups!!


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