How did we get painted Thoroughbreds?

Talk about equine color, markings, genetics, etc. Post pictures of flashy Thoroughbreds!

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MattieCat
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How did we get painted Thoroughbreds?

Postby MattieCat » Sat Dec 10, 2016 9:35 am

DISCLAIMER: This is an informational post about how FRAME OVERO Thoroughbreds developed, though it definitely has some biased opinion supporting colored Thoroughbreds, as neutral as I tried to be. My intention is not to make people mad, but inform them threw as much research as I had time for. Please do not read this if you will become upset and irrationally criticize. Criticism without support and reliability need not be posted. This topic is supposed to be educational.

NOTE: I did not touch on Dominant Whites, Sabinos, Splash Whites, Dilutes...etc.

The pattern of the frame overos (of which are entirely different from Dominant Whites or sabinos), from what we can see, traces back to a mare called Patchy Lassy and her full brother Nite Spot whom, I'm sorry to say, are probably some of the most dangerously inbred horses I have seen in a while. Either Pesty Axe or Torchy's Rainbow passed frame to Patchy Lassy and Nite Spot (obviously), and perhaps both parents had the lethal white gene. Pesty Axe and Torchy's Rainbow are half brother and sister, and the inbred sire lines are filled with grays. Some gray horses have a history of throwing a lot of splash and sabino color. There is always a chance that there were crop out frames before Lassy and Nite. This would mean that lethal white was just a little mutation a horse received due to factors in their pedigree, but the specific gene really wasn't passed down at all.

Though no one knows for sure exactly where the frame overo or lethal white gene came from. Since none of the horses before Patchy Lassy and Nite Spot were renown racehorses, I have yet to find pictures of them in an attempt to see if any of them were clearly phenotypically frame overo. Pictures can be determining factors whether a horse is a loud frame (or clearly spotted), but can be severely misleading at times as well. Consider the frame overo stallion Spot from Nite Spot, Remarquez from Risque Remarque, and other minimal frames that, frankly, look like normal Thoroughbreds. It is entirely possible that the frame overo or lethal white gene was carried in the Thoroughbreds for a very, very long time in it's minimal state. It is also entirely possible that people haven't registered loud colored thoroughbreds in the past because G3 winning Betsy, even though she was bred live cover to a G2 race stud, was turned out with a grade colt in the field and no one believed it could be possible to have a purebred painted thoroughbred at the time. It is kind of hard to comprehend that kind of anomaly at the day and age where accidents like that happened more often than in the controlled breeding settings we have today. Let's also not forget that parentage verification using DNA typing wasn't established in the JC until 2001, so we have science to fall back on if there are any concerns on lineage. We are a huge step ahead in science and DNA, and as a matter of fact genetics is a growing interest in the world today.

Getting back to the point, without DNA verification to see where the lethal white gene came from, it will be impossible to tell exactly which horse(s) the lethal white gene actually came from. It may not even come from the inbred grays in Patchy Lassy and Nite Spot's pedigree. It could have come from any horse in their pedigree, but we've had JC registered paint thoroughbreds at least since Nite Spot in 1985. They just haven't been given a proper start on the race track yet, and I'd say 31 years is plenty of time to accept the fact that the color of someone shouldn't necessarily determine the opportunities they are capable of achieving (we've already been through this guys...), and even though money does determine opportunities to a certain extent, it's hard to ignore a horse like Koda Chrome, Extreme Scene, Matoka's Marque, Caught Creepin, RHF Harlequin, and other up and coming frame overo progeny that need a shot at the races or at least in the breeding shed. You're kidding yourself if you don't think these big racing farms don't have the money to spend. It's whether they want to spend it.

I would say the biggest dilemma in the colored thoroughbreds that turns people off is their lineage. Most are unproven and unraced, and for at least 31 years from what we know of, the colored thoroughbreds have grown (to some) obsolete pedigree-wise. If you introduce horses like War Front, Tapit, Bernardini, Tiznow, Twirling Candy, California Chrome, and other high dollar studs to colored mares, you'll have some nice race prospects. No backyard colored thoroughbred breeder can afford this though. If someone is going to take getting the colored thoroughbreds on the track seriously, it should be WinStar, Claiborne, Taylor Made, Lanes End, or some other top notch TB facility that has the stallions and the money to spend. In a few years, you could have an amazing race prospect with the color to wow the crowds, if, of course, you have the money and motivation to make it happen. I have no doubt a colored thoroughbred could win the Triple Crown in the near future, if given the chance.


This is just my observation and opinion. I'd love to hear what you guys have to say. Feel free to post pedigree analysis on Dominant Whites, Sabinos, Splash Whites, Dilutes...etc. I'd love to hear about it. I do not know too much about dominant whites, sabinos, and splash whites and would love to learn.

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Patchy Lassy
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summerhorse
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Re: How did we get painted Thoroughbreds?

Postby summerhorse » Tue Dec 27, 2016 9:26 am

There is of course no way to know when the frame gene was introduced to the TB gene pool. There have always been spotted thoroughbreds although most were of white spotted mutations or the so far unidentified splash type pattern. Because frame can hide so minimally it could have been passed on for generations before a loud horse popped up. The problem was that nobody believed that those loud horses were purebred and they were disposed of. The breeders would have kept the horses with just "flashy" markings so thus were unwittingly selecting for minimally expressed frame horses. Undoubtedly another breed (or grade) probably infused the gene in many, many years ago and their influence genetically probably does not go beyond the color gene. We do know that frame is a new world mutation so it had to have been introduced in the U.S.A. Before blood typing and DNA all pedigrees are somewhat suspect, paper switching common until the 80s and in early days when pedigrees were passed on by memory, often just made up. Sometimes horses were switched accidently too, in fact that still happens today, but now we can catch it. Another problem is that the color of course is still very rare and only existed in obscure pedigrees and probably only survived because of that. A large breeder often sold the louder horses on because of the dislike, esp. in the UK, about flashy markings. A small breeder had too much money tied up in a foal to just discard it without seeing what it could do. A similar thing happened with the cream TBs although not to the same extent. The cream gene was always there but when the stud books restricted their color options they became hidden in pedigrees as bay and chestnut and cream over seal brown was often not recognized at all. It was harder to hide a pinto although if one was registered it too became anonymous in pedigrees as the spots were not described, it simply became bay or chestnut or black. Unlike the white spotted gene and possibly the splash type gene, cream and frame are old mutations and don't just pop up anymore, they could be traced if the colors were known. Greys often hide loud white markings, they were just registered as grey and when they greyed out, no more white markings. A line of greys could hide frame for a very long time (cream also).
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Re: How did we get painted Thoroughbreds?

Postby Linda_d » Sat Dec 31, 2016 11:33 am

The only way that frame overo is going to become widespread among Thoroughbreds is the same way that other once "unfashionable" colors or markings became common in the Thoroughbred gene pool: a successful race horse carrying the gene has to go on to become a dominant race sire. The Tetrarch back in the early 20th century did that for grays just as Northern Dancer did that for the "sabino" TB gene about a half century later. Other dominant white mutations as well as the cream gene remain rare in Thoroughbreds because no dominant racing sire has spread them through the breed population.

I think that means that if frame overo is going to become common then it will come from a line other than Patchy Lassy and Nite Spot. Those horses are just not bred to be even medium class race horses, much less top caliber ones, and haven't been for numerous generations.
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