Talk:Seal brown (horse)

I still wonder

I have to admit that I still really do wonder if the seal brown versus sooty thing is a distinction without a difference. The photos below are so open to interpretation, and absent DNA testing, I hate to deviate from standard interpretation unless the photo uploader clearly identified certain animals as tested.

Gallery

• 
  Seal brown and pangare. (I say all pangare)
• 
  Body-clipped seal brown? No, Probably a bay, too red.
• 
  quite seal brown, I don't see the tan, I see red, if there is line between a seal brown and a dark bay, this horse might be on it // Here, it'd probably be dark blood bay as "black blood bay" doesn't exist in our terminology, and the overall impression is not quite black. Its very dark though.
• 
  Excellent example of a seal brown
• 
  Light seal brown
• 
  Seal Brown
• 
  Light brown Paso fino (and how is this not a bay?
• 
  Seal brown roan (I'd argue a red roan, though not all that hard -- body looks like a blue roan. Odd, certainly.
• 
  Groningen painting
• 
  Smoky black or brown buckskin? // No dark mask or dorsal stripe (it shpould be visible near the hips judging from the horse's position), so buckskin. It sure can be confusing though.
• 
  Most horses are, indeed, some shade of brown/Distinguishing the many shades of "brown" from...can be daunting for a novice.
• 
  Dark bay or brown? Unquestionably a dark bay.
• 
  Dark bay. Note rich, red color, top-down sootiness and dappling, lack of tan regions, relatively "low" black points. No, it's clearly a blood bay, rich red horses are blood bays // It's both dark and bloody so dark blood bay.
• 
  Dark bay Oldenburg (uh, uh, blood bay) // I'd say dark bay, and whether it's dark blood bay or just dark bay is quite much up to the viewer. Has some redness but not much.
• 
  Dark bay (another blood bay)
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  Sooty buckskin, top-down darkening
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  Faded black. (Agreed)
• 
  Clearly a dark bay. // I'd say dark blood bay.
• 
  Faded black or smoky black
• 
  black horse
• Wild bay
  Wild bay
• 
  Wild bay (What is a "wild" bay? I still don't get that one..._) // Wild bay or wildtype bay has only a little black colour in the bottom of the legs. Look at the legs and you'll get what it means.
• 
  Liver chestnut // not, has black in the mane and the hock; legs are light but it's a winter coat and probably mighty sunfaded, looking at that horse it looks like it's been out the whole time :)
• 
  Silver dapple --DNA tested? Looks like a chestnut, and silver dapple is suppressed on chestnuts // Grey darker colour on legs indicate a silver dapple bay.

Countercanter (talk) 14:52, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Responses to hidden text

Seal brown is a hair coat color of horses characterized by a near-black body color, black mane, tail and legs...// As opposed to liver chestnut?

Would you like me to include this distinction in the intro?

Is it common practice to put the quotation in the hidden comments?

this should not be confused with traditional buckskins

Agreed.

How does this differ from a bay? Also may need to mention that we start with a black base coat (E) here, do we not?

Yes, the MC1R/Extension gene is discussed in the beginning paragraph, and mentioned in the first part of the sentence. You mean I should try to tie the MC1R genotype to the black-pointed phenotype more clearly?

awkward style to keep citing these guys by name in the text, better just to footnote

Ok.

Some of this may be nice to put in the Sooty article?

Ok!

Countercanter (talk) 12:57, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

---

Also worth discussing -- the nature of the Agouti gene, and other genes, for that matter. Let's use human ASIP as an example, and we'll pretend it's horse ASIP. The horse ASIP is out there and I found it but I'm feeling like I'd rather not spend my Sunday morning on NCBI. And for argument's sake let's say that bay and wild bay are no different at agouti. I have no idea if they really are or are not, but we will treat both as "wildtype." It is 584 base pairs long:

1 gcctcctggg atggatgtca cccgcttact cctggccacc ctgctggtct tcctctgctt

61 cttcactgcc aacagccacc tgccacctga ggagaagctc cgagatgaca ggagcctgag

121 aagcaactcc tctgtgaacc tactggatgt cccttctgtc tctattgtgg cgctgaacaa

181 gaaatccaaa ccgatcggca gaaaagcagc agaaaagaaa agatcttcta agaaggaggc

241 ttcgatgaag aaagtggtgc ggccccggac ccccctatct gcgccctgcg tggccacccg

301 caacagctgc aagccgccgg cacccgcctg ctgcgacccg tgcgcctcct gccagtgccg

361 cttcttccgc agcgcctgct cctgccgcgt gctcagcctc aactgctgag cgcccccact

421 cccggccgcg agcaggcagg gcttcgggga cgcggggcgc ttctcgggcg ggtgatccct

481 aacagggcgg cttcccaggg ctgcaggcgg gcggaggttc caggagatgg gacttcaggg

541 agacctggct tgggctaaaa tcgaaataca atatatatag gctg

And conceivably encodes the following amino acids:

MDVTRLLLATLLVFLCFFTANSHLPPEEKLRDDRSLRSNSSVNLLDVPSVSIVALNKKSKPIGRKAAE

KKRSSKKEASMKKVVRPRTPLSAPCVATRNSCKPPAPACCDPCASCQCRFFRSACSCRVLSLNC

A horse with this Agouti gene will be wildtype (bay/wild bay). Okay, more pretend. Let's pretend that in the 301 line, 11 base pairs are deleted. This is the a allele; an 11 bp deletion that breaks the Agouti gene.

Let's then pretend that on the 361 line, we change that first c into a t, and let's pretend that this is our A^t allele. The gene, and resultant protein, are altered but not completely broken.

I can feel that you are thinking that seal brown is bay+something, which I do not think is the best way to think of it. Buckskin is bay+something. Once again I've failed to really round out my thoughts on this, but maybe this is helpful.

[1] Here is the link to the equine ASIP gene. Not so beautifully fleshed out as the murine or human one but, there ya go. Countercanter (talk) 13:51, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Commons photos

I have been informed that the category Brown horses is for users that don't know the difference between chestnut and bay. The category Bay horses currently holds every shade of bay, including dark bay i.e. "brown". I am confused as how are readers supposed to learn the difference when there are not any brown horse images displayed. AFIK all common breeds list brown as a colour. What are other equine editors thoughts? Cgoodwin (talk) 03:19, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I've been over there. I agree, it's a bit of a mess. They've even been adding bay tobianos and such, plus breaking things into a zillion sub-categories. I think we mostly have some folks who are a bit overeager to organize but not quite up to speed on the details. Unfortunately, the bulk of my wiki-time is when I'm home on the dialup, which makes it very tough for me to tweak files in commons. But I would support some instruction and general hand-holding over there if anyone else wanted to go over to commons and fix things. I did so a couple years ago and got yelled at for pointing out that gray horses aren't "white", but things seem a bit better now; they accepted my corrections with grace when I pointed out that a bay dun has white guard hairs on the outside of its black mane and hence was not in fact a sooty palomino! They also agreed with me when I identified a horse as sabino and not splash overo. So I think if we are helpful and friendly, we may be able to fix things. FWIW, most registries that use "brown" as a horse color are referencing a dark bay, not a liver chestnut. And as this article indicates, even "seal brown" is genetically underlain by bay. No horse organization I know of ever calls a chestnut "brown". "Red" occasionally, and "sorrel" quite often, but not "brown." Montanabw^(talk) 04:49, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I made a category Black bay horses and I'll add a short explanation to the category Brown horses with pictures too. It's great to have a third person (and a fourth one as well?) (besides me and Kersti) who has any idea of horse colours. As for zillion undercats, we have been having HUGE cats (take "grey horses" for instance, it'd have more than 200 pictures without subcats), and some cats have been downright not logical (namely, Dun horses).

I'm sorry to get snippy, but the reorganization over in commons is making it far less user-friendly. Their search feature is not very good absent proper categories. We WANT 200 thumbnails of gray horses all in one place so we can compare them when looking for photos to use in wikipedia. Commons is useless if things are in a dozen impossible to find categories. It is a media repository, not an encyclopedia in and of itself. And Dun is a specific dilution gene that acts on any base coat color, so no problem lumping them all together, though there is no harm in sorting out the red duns, bay duns and blue duns (grullos) if it's done properly and the herds (like that group of fjords of different shades) are kept in a "generic" dun category. When you over-categorize, or wrongly categorize, it makes it tougher for the rest of us to actually find anything. Sorry to rant, but I'm a little frustrated. Montanabw^(talk) 21:02, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Cgoodwin: "AFIK all common breeds list brown as a colour." I'd like to know on what country's breed registries is this claim based on. At least Sweden, Finland and Germany don't recognise any other base colours than chestnut, bay and black. Black bay is recognised as a shade of bay, and the horses identified as such are ones that would be identified as brown in the UK (prolly?) and the USA (prolly?). IMHO this is not a big issue, we just need to decide what to call the colour we know exists, and if we need a category for people who don't know if the horse in their pic is chestnut or dun. Not that the category "horse coat colors" has been quite much cleared, I'd argue we don't need one. We can have a basic identifying guide in the beginning of the Horse coat colors cat page for typical cases of grey, black, bay and chestnut, and a mention of "if the horse has white areas on its body, please also categorise it under Horse spotting patterns". Including the confusion of dilution and spotting would be unnecessary, as having pictures in the root categories is not a big deal since there are users that will have the knowledge to subcategorise them. Pitke (talk) 10:42, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Pitke, bless ya, but the "horse coat colors" page is an excellent "one-stop shopping" spot for some basic color photos and access to the categories where there are more. (similar to the way the horse breed page is also a useful starting point) And yes, in fact we DO need more than the most common four colors, as the terms of art for the others predate modern genetic understanding, and ordinary people have no clue that, say, a palomino is produced by one cream gene acting on a chestnut coat.

And please, if I may step on the soapox, "BROWN" HORSES ALWAYS CARRY BAY GENETICS! Chestnuts do not, no matter how dark they are. (sorry to shout). I'm not a fan of the term "brown" because it is so imprecise, but we are stuck with it as a common term for dark bays, sooty bays and as this article indicates, it seems to have its own genetic characteristics--and thus, we need to use it properly. In the USA, some registries don't recognize "brown" (Arabian registry for one) though may comment on it as a subset of bay, others DO consider it a separate color, (Thoroughbreds and Quarter Horses among them, a couple million horses can't be wrong! LOL!) but acknowledge that the black points are a characteristic. Montanabw^(talk) 21:02, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

No need to step there, I never claimed what English horse people call brown would genetically be anything other than bay. My point is that people who do not know equine terminogy will think that a horse called brown horse is just that, all brown. I don't know what you are meaning with the whole recognition as a separate colour though. Maybe it's because the system here where I live is different - breed registries don't have much power at all, as all horses are registered in the superassociation, and breed registries may accept horses into their own registers if they only will. "Wrong coloured" horses of a given breed will simply be left out the breed registry. The horse will in any case have registeration papers with the information of the identified colour, and the breed it was born (even if not acceptable by the breed registry).

Also, are we talking about the category "Horse coat colors" ow, or the actual Commons gallery page? I *do* think the colour *page* is a brilliant thing for people wanting to see what colours of the horse look like, and I *do* think the page galleries need a load of good and diverse pictures of every possible colour and shade so that people can see both what a typical colour x looks like, and what are the normal variations within the colour, and what weird shades the colour might sometimes have. BUT as a writer wikipedian I also feel a strong need to have subcategories. It is no use to have a few pictures in a gallery if I need a specific type of such, and the category the gallery directs me to is not organised, and contains dozens and dozens of pictures. I feel the color *page* should act as a guide to the category system. Do you think it would be better to not have supcats sub to "horse colors" (such as "dun gene" or "spotted patterns"), but instead make all different colour categories (in this case, "red dun", "grullo", "dun" etc.) directly sub to "horse colors", and make separate categories for unidentified colors? That's something I could promote.Pitke (talk) 12:32, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Second, there is NO SUCH THING as a "black bay," and I cannot think of any registry that actually puts the term on registration papers. Now genetically, all bays are in a way also "black," as genetically the agouti allele can only act on a black base coat. But that would really confuse non-horse people, so let's keep it simple and for English, use proper English equine terminology and in any language we must acknowledges genetic reality. "Black bay" in English is nothing but a commercial term used mostly by breeders (particularly of Arabians) who want to fool neophytes into buying a dark bay horse, thinking it's "almost black" (which is like being "almost pregnant"). "Black bay" horses are simply dark bays, what was once called "mahogany bay." These horses usually have the seal brown characteristics. I don't mean to rant, but a couple years ago I spent ages explaining to Kersti that gray horses were not "white," so I am a little frustrated here. I realize that I do not speak any foreign languages, so I have immense respect for those of you who speak English as a second language with significant English fluency, but on these colloquial terms, please ask us over here. I've been working on the color articles for about three years and Countercanter, our resident genetics expert, has been at them for at least a year if not more, so we really have a strong base of knowledge you can draw upon. And we beg you to do so. Drop a message to me or to Countercanter any time and we would be delighted to help you out!!! Montanabw^(talk) 21:02, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

This horse

"Liver chestnut // Not, has black in the mane and the hock; legs are light but it's a winter coat and probably mighty sunfaded, looking at that horse it looks like it's been out the whole time :) (Pitke (talk))"

I'd like to point out that the horse has black mane. Whatever his legs might look like, he can't be chestnut AND have black hair since the genetics of E and A genes. The horse obviously has a long winter coat and might also be a wildtype bay as far as we could know. My bottom line is, we can't be sure of the horses colour, and if we can't decide on this, I suggest we select another clearly, agreeably liver chestnut that looks dark enough to fill the part of this picture. As a matter of fact I suggest it in any case as this particular animal is so confusing. I aknowledge that the mane MIGHT be just a REALLY dark chocolate brown (though it looks black to me every time), but without DNA test results, we cannot ever be sure. Pitke (talk) 12:07, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

His mane is not black, it's dark brown to me (every time! LOL!). A black mane just bleaches on the tips, goes more reddish or tan than chocolate. And no way do the pasterns bleach! I agree that he cannot be both chestnut and black, but dark liver chestnuts can be a very uniform dark brown. And winter coats wreak havoc with everything! But I also agree that if good folks differ, maybe go over to chestnut (coat) and swipe the photo of the obviously liver chestnut Mangalarga Paulista that's in that article. Montanabw^(talk) 04:27, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree no bay, brown or black horse has legs of this colour. It is a liver chestnut. See also [2] for a horse that someone listed as a chestnut because of his old faded black mane. He is undisputably a bay with black legs.Cgoodwin (talk) 06:01, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Suppression of significant white markings in true seal brown horses (also seen in many duns/buckskins)

In more than 40 years of training, exhibiting and breeding, I have noted that in true seal brown horses, and also in many duns/buckskins, and grullas, generally only minimal white markings are seen. I have often wondered about whether a genetic suppression of the (latent) white markings may be at work.

For example, when one looks at all the pictures of true seal browns, and reviews all the true seal browns one has known, when any white markings are present, they are generally a small star, perhaps a small snip, and one or two coronets. I do not recall any significant blazes, socks, or stockings.

Buckskins, grullas and duns also tend to show this suppression of white markings.

By the way, this seems to hold across breeds: for example, we see many seal browns in Thoroughbreds; and the white markings are few. The duns/buckskins and grullas, of course, are grounded in the Quarter Horse (with origins in the Spanish horse (and the Mustang) and further back into the primitive breeds, especially Przewalski's and the Tarpan. But here as well, we see few white markings.

I'm hoping that folks out there, with a genetics/horse breeding background, can add some good science/DNA research to all these years of observations. I will look forward to your input! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pihamilton (talk • contribs) 19:45, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Interesting observation. Similarly, you see few white markings on roans. On the other hand, you see a lot of bold white markings in chestnuts and some blood bays. You may find it interesting to read dominant white, which was written by our resident genetics expert (who seems to be on a wikibreak right now, unfortunately). There are some really interesting questions about how markings are created and of even more fascination, their link to the pinto patterns, especially Tobiano and sabino. As those with time to access science databases find more peer-reviewed materials, we WPEQ junkies will gladly see what we can add (as time permits, there are only a couple thousand horse articles in here on wikipedia...). Montanabw^(talk) 20:38, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

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