horses with unique coloring/facial markings

[Miss Woodford]

He's only 3/4 TB, but check out this guy's Birdcatcher spots. His name is Magic Replica, by the TB sporthorse stallion Mystic Replica out of a TB x Belgian mare by Travelling Music. No Appaloosa in him!. Apparently he was born plain bay and the white spots only showed up when he was 5-6 years old.

Birdcatcher spots can show up later in life? I didn't know!

It's actually typical for them to appear around maturity. This is different from Tetrarch spots on a gray horse, which go white before the rest of the body and thus are visible on very young colts. In both cases horses usually have just a few scattered spots though, not covering the entire body like Magic Replica.

The genetics of Birdcatcher/Tetrarch/Bend Or spots hasn't been pinpointed but they are known to run in families. Mystic Replica tends to sire offspring in plain bay wrappers (who can jump the moon!) so it must've been quite a welcome surprise for Magic Replica's owners when he started showing spots.

[Starine]

Crowd favorite Miss Vista dies
https://www.justhorseracing.com.au/news ... ies/430932

[lurkey mclurker]

oh no !@#$%$#@#$ laminitis (I'm assuming from the details)

[Northport]

It sounded like laminitis, but I'm just assuming, since that tends to be the most common 'ongoing foot issue'.

[Sparrow Castle]

Barbara Livingston @DRFLivingston
3h3 hours ago
GOTTA GO (by Shanghai Bobby), trained by Ian Wilkes, ran a solid second in the Swale in early February and returns in Saturday's Fountain of Youth. @DRFWelsch article: http://www.drf.com/news/wilkes-hoping-g ... by-picture …

And face it, as it's easy to spot...anyone who's seen GOTTA GO is crazy about him!

[sweettalk]

holy headgear, batman

[djnorth]

Looks kinda like the Phantom's mask!

[Ziggypop]

holy headgear, batman

I am speechless.

[sweettalk]

holy headgear, batman

I am speechless.

? i see a halter, bridle, that string/rope thingy that's supposed to keep horses calm, stud chain, and two people walking him. is he the horse equivalent of a toddler on caffeine?

[Northport]

It looks pretty standard to me. As a former (female, not so muscular) hotwalker, I rather have a little extra hardware to keep a squirrelly horse calm than be dragged around with no control of a 1,500lbs animal. For a lot of them, once they get a little extra pressure on their nose and/or lip, you barely have to exert any force on the lead shank.

[sweettalk]

i rarely see that string thing, and don't often see two handlers (but that's decidedly less uncommon than said string thing), but if that looks standard, i'll take your word for it, i haven't worked the track since like 2005.

[PONYRCR]

I believe that string thing is called a stabilizer and if I remember right D. Wayne Lukas was one of the first to use it.

[Ridan_Remembered]

holy headgear, batman

I am speechless.

? i see a halter, bridle, that string/rope thingy that's supposed to keep horses calm, stud chain, and two people walking him. is he the horse equivalent of a toddler on caffeine?

Carl Nafzger used one on Street Sense: http://udderlyez.com/stableizer.php

[sweettalk]

it has a name! street sense was the first time i saw it (that i can remember), and i feel like i've only seen it on one or two other horses aside from him.

[Sparrow Castle]

Starting a new career...

Barbara Livingston @DRFLivingston
2h2 hours ago
So wonderful to finally meet PAINTING THE SKY (2013 m. by Yankee Gentleman - Lone Star Quest, by Lone Star Sky), bred and raced by Sandra New. This highly unusual LA-bred won 2 of 12 with a second and 3 thirds for trainer Brett Brinkman. Now beginning her 2nd career - polo pony!

[Ridan_Remembered]

PAINTING THE SKY sure has a pretty head and those photos are wonderful. So good to see a Thoroughbred going on to a second career. The leader of the U.S. polo team visited Chrome toward the end of his racing career, so I wouldn't be surprised if some of Chrome's foals wind up as polo ponies.

For the color aficionados here, how did a bay stallion and dkb/br mare produce a horse with Painting The Sky's coloring? She is registered as a bay.

[Treve]

She has very pretty colouring. She needs some muscling in her neck though.
She is a Dominant White over Bay. You can tell on the close up of her headshot that her mane is black. Sometimes the DW "bleaches" out the mane and tail gives the impression of a chestnut, but a DNA test can confirm. In this case though it is directly visible.
Dominant White is a spontaneous mutation in thoroughbreds, and is so called because it is indeed dominant (you only need one copy of the mutated gene for it to manifest).
I'm not familiar with all the lines that have produced DW off the top of my head so looking at her pedigree I don't see anything that immediately jumps out at me. She might be the spontaneous mutation. Unless Yankee Gentleman has produced others I would say she could be, otherwise her dam could be the one producing it.

[aethervox]

PAINTING THE SKY sure has a pretty head and those photos are wonderful. So good to see a Thoroughbred going on to a second career. The leader of the U.S. polo team visited Chrome toward the end of his racing career, so I wouldn't be surprised if some of Chrome's foals wind up as polo ponies.

For the color aficionados here, how did a bay stallion and dkb/br mare produce a horse with Painting The Sky's coloring? She is registered as a bay.

Her color (Dominant White) is due to a mutation in a gene called KIT https://equinerainbow.weebly.com/kit.html. In her case there's a deletion mutation on Exon3, according to https://equinerainbow.weebly.com/white-spotting.html In her case it may be a spontaneous mutation (i.e. her sire and dam don't have it). It's hard to tell without pictures, since the Jockey Club doesn't have a color category for 'spotted white'.

[Ridan_Remembered]

Thanks @Treve and @aethervox for the explanation of the mare's color. It's so interesting and kind of mysterious. Here's a Paulik Report article about Painting the Sky during her racing days: https://www.paulickreport.com/news/thor ... ine-downs/

Here is a photo of Yankee Gentleman, her sire:


The damsire, Lone Star Sky, was also a bay. I couldn't find any pictures of the Painting the Sky's dam.
https://www.horseracingnation.com/horse/Lone_Star_Sky#

[Flanders]

Thanks @Treve and @aethervox for the explanation of the mare's color. It's so interesting and kind of mysterious. Here's a Paulik Report article about Painting the Sky during her racing days: https://www.paulickreport.com/news/thor ... ine-downs/

Here is a photo of Yankee Gentleman, her sire:


The damsire, Lone Star Sky, was also a bay. I couldn't find any pictures of the Painting the Sky's dam.
https://www.horseracingnation.com/horse/Lone_Star_Sky#

I just watched a couple of the dam's race replays on Twinspires. She is dark bay/brown with a average size blaze and maybe some socks. Its pretty hard to tell with the quality but didn't see anything unusual and I was able to see both sides of her.