Bay with Dorsal Stripe - Update Pg. 3

[Bonanza]

Rosie is a bay, but she has a dorsal stripe. I am wondering how common it is for a bay to have a dorsal stripe since people usually point it out when they meet her for the first time....it does look pretty nice on her

[Tobiesmom]

Are you sure she's not a dun masquerading as a bay???? I hear a lot of them do that just so they can sneak into those special 'horsie bars'!!! Do you have pictures? Do you know what colors her mama and daddy were? I'd love to know more!

[BarnBum]

My gelding is a bay/overo w/ a dorsal stripe.

[Gotta Love Duns]

Well bays can have strong counter shading which can look like a dorsal stripe. Or it can be a bay dun so depending on lines that should give you the anwser. I have seen a few, actually my filly has a bit of counter shading but its not too strong.

[Bonanza]

I need to take a better picture so you can see it better, but you can see it in these if you look carefully:





She's registered breeding stock paint - I don't know what color Mom and Dad are but I bet I can find out since she's registered...

Tobiesmom - she's so purty they let her in anyway

[Crookedblaze]

I think that it is just darker hair...my bay Mac has it, also. Or she could be a weird variety of dun.

Either way, it looks good.

[Gotta Love Duns]

Going by those pictures alone I would say bay with counter shading & this is why.
I'm not seeing any other of the classic dun characteristics, such as the barring on the legs, spider webbing on the face, the shoulder patch.

[roberts617]

Our rescue pony has a dark dorsal, you can see it in this pic. (Or bay with counter shading, I really don't know...

[lopintoo]

I have had a few with the stripes down their backs. One in particular was a gelding that had alot of dun factor too. His sire was a dun, but this guy was just a little to dark to be considered dun. We had another gelding that was a light sorrel that had a red stripe very much like a red dun. I'm sure it was counter shading as his sire and dam were both sorrels but you could see his stripe from clear across the pasture (about 100 yards away). He could not be called a dun though because that was the only striping he had.

I currently have a little mare that is registered as a bay. Some will call her a light bay and others will call her a darker buckskin. Right now she is more of a buckskin color and she does have some of the buckskin/dun characteristics. Her sire is a dun. I am planning on sending some pictures to AQHA (we have to send her papers back in to be printed parentage verified anyway) to see what color they think she is. It would be great if they change her to buckskin - not holding my breath though.

[lopintoo]

Many of the horses with stripes are actually just sun burnt. If you kept them in out of the sun many will turn the color of the stripe once the faded hair sheds. If I have any questions as to what color they really are we put them in the barn during the day and only turn them out at night. In about a month you have your answer.

[Texas Paints N Arabs]

I had a bay arab mare that had a dorsal stripe as well as the stripes on the legs, but she was just a bay

[Tobiesmom]

Boy, I don't know.... that's a strong, clearly defined dorsal that Rosie has.... if you compare to the pic of the rescue pony, you can see the difference between what I'd call a dorsal (Rosie's) and counter-shading (the pony's). Even though the pony's is visible, it doesn't have the clearly defined edges that Rosie has. Rosie looks a lot more like a dun than some of the horses I've seen shown in IBHA and ABRA (Buckskina and Dun horse associations)!! The striping and cobwebbing can be pretty hard to see and/or can be non-existent on a darker horse. Some duns seem to show only dark points on legs/mane/tail and a dorsal. Ideally, the dun horse has all characteristics (that's what they juge the 'color' or 'dun factor' classes on). But there are actually not a lot of duns that demonstrate all of them. The ABRA has regional/local inspectors that will take a look at your horse (and background information if you have any) and can help you determine if the horse is a dun or not. Maybe you could check and see if one is in your area??? It would be interesting. She's a pretty girl.

[grullatobiano]

In stock horses, "dun" refers to a dilution of the base coat AS WELL AS primitive markings. A dark bay can not be a dun. A horse who does not have a dun parent can not be a dun. Some bays appear to exhibit shoulder smudging, cobwebs, leg barring, even dorsal stripes, but this is countershading, not evidence of dun.

Smutty/sooty diluted coats do not look the same as plain bay or sorrel. You can clearly see a much lighter undercoat.

What's wrong with having a nice, regular coloured horse?

[Slim Pikkens]

Whatever happened to good old plain language. A bay with countershading? I wonder who tho't that one up? What's wrong with a bay with a dorsal stripe? At least people would know what one is talking about. I have a bay with a dorsal stripe and it's there summer and winter. The remainder of his coat never gets that dark.

[snickers]

******The dun gene is a dilution gene that affects both red and black pigments in the coat color of a horse. The dun gene has the ability to affect the appearance of all black, bay, or chestnut ("red")-based horses to some degree by lightening the base body coat and suppressing the underlying base color to the mane, tail, legs and "primitive markings."

The classic Dun is a gray-gold or tan, characterized by a body color ranging from sandy yellow to reddish-brown. Dun horses always have a dark stripe down the middle of their back, a tail and mane darker than the body coat, and usually darker faces and legs. Other duns may appear a light yellowish shade, or a steel gray, depending on the underlying coat color genetics. Manes, tails, primitive markings and other dark areas are usually the shade of the non-diluted base coat color.

The dun allele is a simple dominant, so that the phenotype of a horse with either one copy or two copies of the gene is dun. It has a stronger effect than the silver dapple gene, which acts only on black-based coats, or the cream gene, an incomplete dominant which must be homozygous to be fully expressed, and is visible when heterozygous only on bay and chestnut coats, and then to a lesser degree.

The dun gene also causes "primitive" markings which are darker than the body color. Primitive markings include:

Dorsal stripe (stripe down the center of the back, along the spine), seen almost universally on all duns
Zebra stripes on the back of forelegs, common on most duns, though at times rather faint.
Shoulder blade stripe, the least commonly-seen of the primitive markings

However, virtually all duns have the dorsal stripe, most have the leg striping, and the shoulder stripes are often fainter, but usually visible on horses with a short summer hair coat. ******


As you notice, all duns do not have to have all dun markings to be a dun. Dorsal, yes.

Yes, there is such a color as bay dun.

*****Bay (black base + Agouti gene) + Dun gene= Classic dun (sometimes called "Bay dun" or "Zebra dun").

Bay duns are bay horses with at least one dominant dun allele. Red and black pigment at the extremities remains largely unchanged, but on the body, black pigment is diluted to slate and red pigment is diluted to a dustier shade. The effect is similar to buckskin, but the coat of a bay dun is a flatter tan rather than bronze, and all duns have some form of primitive markings that include a dorsal stripe along the backbone, and sometimes faint horizontal striping at the back of the front legs.*****

If the dorsal goes from mane to tail and looks to continue into both, it is some form of dun color.

I would say, she is a bay dun as information proves there is such a color.

[nrhareiner]

My Red Dun stallion only has a dorsal strip so to say that they need more then that is not correct. Some do and some do not. Even my Dun mare has very very little other markings.

And yes Te is a red dun and Cassie is a Dun.

Heidi

[hawk]

I was watching horse racing on TV the other night and noticed a dark bay TB with a BIG dorsal stripe down its back. It was pretty one and shocking to see a dorsal on a TB. I never seen a TB with a dorsal stripe, so its rare I guess....

oh, and the horse ended out winning the race

[Horselessnomore]

nrhareiner -- so there is such a thing as a red dun. I never knew. My little guy has a bit of a dorsal stripe as seen here:



and if you actually look at his tail it has 3 colours. The light on the sides, the darker in the middle and then underneath the darker red it is really dark, almost black. He has the dorsal stripe half way from rump to about mid-back.

[grullatobiano]

The dun gene is a dilution gene that affects both red and black pigments in the coat color of a horse. The dun gene has the ability to affect the appearance of all black, bay, or chestnut ("red")-based horses to some degree by lightening the base body coat and suppressing the underlying base color to the mane, tail, legs and "primitive markings.

The "dun gene" is a dilution gene, that includes primitive markings. A horse carrying the dun gene will always exhibit the dilution of the base coat, and may or may not exhibit primitive markings. A horse with some primitive markings is not necessarily a dun.

<snipped by Diamond_Y>

A dorsal stripe is not just a section of darker hair on the back. It is a specific term, and it means a dark stripe that runs all the way down the backbone, including on the tail. If it isn't in the tail, it isn't a dorsal stripe. Not in the horse-colour world anyway.

Now, that is the genetic definition. Phenotypically, some horses look borderline. Buckskins with a lot of "dark highlights" might be registered as dun (no dorsal, but other traits) but he is NOT GENOTYPICALLY A DUN. HE CAN NOT PASS ON A DUN GENE.

Before people went all crazy with naming patterns and colors, any horse with "muted" coloration, mouse greys, yellow coated horses, dull browns were all referred to as "dun". Unfortunately, we have now complicated things with research, data and genetic evidence. "Dun" in the stock horse world now means a horse who carries and can pass on the dun dilution...which may or may not include primitive markings.

Point is, you can call your horse whatever you want, but a bay horse is genotypically a bay.

Bonanza, whatever color you decide she is, your horse is very pretty and you (or whoever that is) looks very happy with her. A good horse is never a bad colour!

[ARSPSB]

Not sure if it can be seen in this pic very well but this filly [3 yr old] has a heavy black stripe down her rump... just counter shading. No way shes a dun...