Mumtaz Mahal

Correct, Mumtaz Mahal was foaled in 1921.

Think that's wrong. I believe it actually goes back to an Irish stallion in the middle of the 19th century. Not 100% sure though.

All descended from Alcock's Arabian in the 1720s apparently. Sad, the accompanying article has a picture of Valiramix :(

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2296131.stm

According to the book Grey Magic they all trace back to Master Robert an Irish horse, bred, by John Whaley of Whaley's Lodge @ The Curragh,. foaled in 1811. Master Robert was by Buffer out of Spinster.

Which one of those was grey then?All grey horses have one grey parent it does not skip a generation or is it poss' before those two they may not be TB?

It would seem, though it isn't made that clear, the colour of Buffer & Spinster are not known. However, Master Robert can be traced through an unbroken line of seven mares to the stallion Crab. Crab was a grey who it is believed inherited his grey colour from Alcock Arabian.

Obviously Mumtaz Mahal wasn`t the first grey.She herself inherited her colour from the flying machine The Tetrarch.
I probably phrased the question incorrectly. I meant have all the other grey lines died out so that if you see a grey thoroughbred you can be sure Mumtaz Mahal is in its pedigree.

All modern greys have Roi Herode in the pedigree, Mumtaz's grandsire

I think that`s probably right h00d.
In an unusual moment of inspiration I remembered Native Dancer was a grey. He is not descended from Mumtaz Mahal, but he is on the dam`s side from Roi Herode, who was also the grandsire of MM.

In one of his books, SignorTesio said that all "white" markings must have come from an albino hoss, originally...

As you said.

My favourite part of looking up a pedigree is when you reach the unknowns and the white boxes appear!

From a previous thread on here about greys. Linamix is **zygous (got both grey genes or something??) which means he only ever gets greys. Are there any other sires like him?. and can a dam be similarly endowed. Interesting thread by the way.

There's an albino called Arctic Bright running in the USA. He sold for $80,000 at Keeneland, probably on novelty value alone. Apparently, they've had problems training him as his pink skin is so tender, especially around the mouth.

verglas produces grey only

Linamix is **zygous (got both grey genes or something??) which means he only ever gets greys.

Yup. Got two copies of the 'greying' gene, one of which will automatically be passed on. Since only one copy of the gene is needed for the horse to turn grey, all of his progeny do.

Arctic Bright is 3 and has made the racecouse. There is an albino gene there as his great-grandam on the sire`s side is described as white,though her name was Not Quite White. Can`t see anything further back though.

Thanks for the replies grizly and history maker.

Linamix and Verglas were both by greys out of greys. As was Linamix`s sire Mendez.

Salmon Spray - when did they start classifying horses as "white"? Is it possible that, in the fairly distant past, white horses were just classified as "grey"? Or has the albino condition always been recognized in the thoroughbred, since the beginning of the stud book?

No expert, but NO horse is "white". The colour does not exist?

or so I was taught!!. Does apparently!,

Interesting thread guys. Nicky Henderson has a white (albino) horse, called The White Admiral.

I imagine there has always been the odd albino, but they are very rare and the thoroughbred population is much larger than it was even 20 years ago.
I would think it is a rogue gene and has nothing to do with the grey gene.

Michael Stoute trained a colt called Prince Lyph - it was very "white" as a three year old, but it wasn't an albino.

Interesting stuff chaps. On a related note I'm pretty certain I read a Tony Morris article years ago where he stated there was no such thing as a roan thoroughbred. Must've been in the 80s when I read that but since I've seen a few listed as gr/ro and there was a roan horse running at Cheltenham this year I think. So what gives?

Chartreux (Fr) ro g Colonel Collins-Ruaha River

David Pipe's, ran in the Albert Bartlett.

re albino thoroughbreds, salmon is right. Nothing to do with with the 'greying' gene (which is a dominant mutation).

I'll explain tomorrow - too much to do now.

Oldies will remember Roan Rocket! He was Roan and pretty good too. Won the Sussex stakes I think. dFor

Yes I remember Roan Rocket. He was certainly described as roan, but I think roans are simply dappled greys.

Salmon - someone will know. Although I have certainly seen roans (or at least horses and ponies described as such) who were certainly not dappled grey (as I understand that term).

A roan by any other name is a roan


True or false: In 1988, Winning Colors became the first roan to win the Kentucky Derby (G1). The answer is true because Winning Colors was registered as a roan by the Jockey Club. The answer is also false because Winning Colors was genetically a gray, not a roan.

In 1993, the Jockey Club introduced a new color category for registration purposes by combining two old categories. Henceforth, all horses that would previously have been registered as "gray" or "roan" would be registered under the umbrella of "gray or roan." This was all well and good except for the fact that, outside of Thoroughbred breeders, the rest of the horse world long has been aware that gray and roan are two unrelated color patterns controlled by two completely different genes.

Gray is a pattern of white hairs infiltrating a coat of any base color (bay, chestnut, brown, black, etc.), that steadily lightens with age. The gray gene progressively blocks pigmentation of the coat. Roan is identified as white hairs infiltrating any base coat color from birth but the overall effect does not lighten with age. The most important difference between the two is that, outside of seasonal coat changes, roan is nonfading, while the very nature of gray is the fading color. In other words, if the horse is turning white, it is due to the gray gene not the roan gene.

Therefore, it is easy to figure out that Winning Colors, who won the Kentucky Derby while she was still a pretty rose gray but who is now a silvery white, must therefore actually be a gray. Likewise, Vigors, Heavenly Cause, Al Hattab, and Geisha (dam of the great Native Dancer), all of whom were registered as roan, turned white with age and thus were, in actuality, grays.

In fact, it is safe to say that nearly all Thoroughbreds registered as roans in the last 60 years or so were actually grays. This has led to another sweeping generality that may also be untrue. There are those who argue that roan is not a valid color in the Thoroughbred and that the term should be thrown out of the registry altogether. While the term roan has been misused in its confusion with gray, there is evidence to indicate that some Thoroughbreds do carry genetics for roan color patterns. These horses do not display the classic or true roan patterns found in some other breeds such as the Quarter Horse, but they have roaning to some degree and seem to pass on this phenomenon to their offspring.

For blackbarn ( and others ). From the American ( obviously ) Thoroughbred Times in 2002.

The difficulty seem to be that their are genuinely roan horses of other breeds, but as the last confused and confusing paragraph of the article above shows, it is a matter of some controversy as to whether there are genuine roan thoroughbreds.

Albino thoroughbred
By Brigid Glanville - Tamworth

Sunday, 13/08/2000

Eight months ago in the New England NSW town of Walcha, a black mare joined with a chestnut sire gave birth to a pure white foal. They're now calling him the "albino" thoroughbred. Brigid Glanville chats to Tamac Stud breeder Geoff Taylor who says he thinks the horse is very rare ... the occurrence of a pure white foal is put at something like one in 300 thousand.

But wait for the next post. My copying and pasting skills are somewhat basic

The typical thoroughbred stands 16 handsA hand is a unit of measurement, used for the height of horses in the U. and the U. in this context, one hand equals four inches (10. (64 inches/1.63 m) high, and is bay, brown, chestnut, black or gray/roan in color. The face and lower legs may be marked with white, but white will generally not appear on the body (although certain color genes, usually found in chestnuts, result in white hairs and white patches in the coat--the study of color genetics in horses is an in-depth one). A handful of non-albino Thoroughbreds have been born with white coats. For many years, The Jockey Club (USA) would not register a Thoroughbred as white; most such horses were registered as grays. However, The Jockey Club now recognizes white as a legitimate, though exceedingly rare, color.

This is from another American source . I`m not quite sure where as this seems to be a copy from somewhere else. So the Jockey Club referred to is The American one. I must admit I find this confusing. Is History Maker around ? I got the impression he knows more than he has said.

Cheers for posting the article about roans SS. I knew I needn't have doubted Tony Morris. Grey it is!

blackbarn 28 Mar 22:58
No expert, but NO horse is "white". The colour does not exist?

It does but only in the form of lethal white,which will only result in the death of the foal at birth or after a few hours,a rare strain of Arab horses are pure white but they only have short lives in comparison with 'normal'breeds.

Further to what my Husband has posted,I will add my thoughts!

As far as I am aware there is NO Roan gene in Thoroughbreds. Roan has a definable gene and this breed do not have it, therefore they cannot exist. In the same way there are no dilutes (Palomino, Cremello,Buckskins etc) or Coloureds.

However, when horses grey out they can change into a variety of shades and these can be mistaken for 'roaning'. I would think the vast majority of the so called 'roans' though are not grey but exhibit one of a few other colour combinations, the most common being Sabino and to a lesser extent Rabicano. These are both genes that affect the distribution of white hairs on the horse, Sabino usually limited to face and legs, (it is sabino that produces white socks and blazes) However you can get high sabinos, White faces, Pink spot on the chin and a splash of white on the belly being the indicators, this can sometimes come with white hairs 'flicked' through the coat around the flanks. Perhaps leading to mistaken roans.

Rabicano is similar, but although commonly seen alongside sabino it is a separate thing. Rabicano spreads white hairs all through the coat, in a dusting fashion, white stripes at the top of the tail and a strip of silver in the tail are all indicators of Rabicano. Sadlers Wells gets a fair number of Rabicanos, remember High Chapparal's sliver streaked tail? Beat Hollow is a good example of the white hairs through the coat, as is his full brother Court Cave. Beat Hollow also shows good Sabino characteristics, wide white face, white feet and a chin spot. There are several 'loud' marked Beat Hollow's, one good example is the aptly named Paint Splash.

I would think that more of the false roans are actually Rabicano rather than Grey. Esp when considered alongside the common knowledge that a grey foal needs a grey parent,. What do you register your 'grey' foal from two bay parents as, apart from roan....

Well that`s more technical than anything I could find.
Certainly sounds convincing.
Thank you.

ben 10-the Henderson horse The White Admiral is not an albino (no pink eyes) -it is just white.

There's a note on the PQ website listing for TOPSY, dam of Most Welcome and half sister to Teenoso : "The Thoroughbred Record listed her as grey or chestnut. Why?"

There was an unusual Aussie horse, born in 1982, called CATCH A BIRD..."Looks like a bay horse with white brindling..." Photos are on t'Internet.