TRUE COLORS - The Bay Gene

Bay is considered the "original" equine color. Major characteristics are the dark "points" ie. the head, mane, tail and legs. See illustration:

Many modifying genes produce various shades of bay horses, some like the red bay, or blood bay; the sandy bay, the mahogany bay, etc. are due to sooty, shade, pangare and other modifiers. But darker point color (forehead, ears, legs, and tail) will always be prevalent in bays.

TYPICAL BAY & MAHOGANY BAY

BAY FOAL COLOR

Bays change shades as they mature as well as through the various seasons. See illustration:

SANDY BAY & WILD BAY

Then there are the genes we can all recognize that affect the bay coat. Genes like the cremello gene which when present in the heterozygous form produces the buckskin and when homozygous the gene produces the perlino. The cremello gene only affects phaeomelanin, the red pigment, so the dark manes and tails of bays will not be affected by one copy of the "Cr" gene. The resulting color of buckskin will depend on the original bay coat and modifiers. Deeper red bays will produce richer colored buckskins, etc.

BUCKSKIN & PERLINO

The dun gene is very similar to the cremello gene in that it dilutes the coat color but not the point color, it produces lineback duns that look very similar to buckskins. Unlike the cremello gene it affects both eumelanistic and phaeomelanistic colors, hence sorrel (red) duns are possible. Geneticists disagree on whether dorsal stripes are a requirement for duns.

DUN VARIATIONS

The tobiano and the overo genes produce bay pintos or as some call them "tri-colors." Please don't call them paints, that name is used to describe a pinto Quarter Horse. Piebald (black pintos) and skewbald (other colored pintos) are correct names, but are not commonly used in the United States.

BAY TOBIANO & BAY OVERO

Now here is a gene that thoroughly confuses many Miniature Horse breeders (and registeries) -- the silver gene linked with the bay gene produces a color that most identify as chestnut (sorrel) with flax/white mane and tail. Breeders MUST learn to identify this color if they will ever be able to predict the colors of their foals. See illustrations:

SILVER BAY VS. SORREL/FLAX

A couple of other genes that can drastically affect bays are grey and roan. These two genes are also often confused, especially in terminology, by not only miniature breeders but horse breeders in general. Since both start off full colored as foals, it is easy to see why there can be mistakes made in registration. Both genes are dominant, so at least one of the parents MUST show the effects. The easiest way to recognize the difference is to note the head and legs, grey horses will grey all over, usually starting around the eyes, roans never lose their color on their heads, it starts to roan from the jaws back.

BAY GREY & BAY ROAN