HGG Community Forums

I know this should maybe be in the Genetics section but I wanted as many people to see it as possible. The Appaloosa chat seems as stumped as I am!

I want to get varnish out of my lines, and to do that I have to understand it. First, I'm assuming it is heritable, and not a (hugely common) mutation like brindle.

So now I need to know if it is recessive (needing 2 copies to be expressed) or dominant (needing only 1 copy) or if it is on something of a spectrum like DP; 2 copies will give you more dramatic/earlier varnishing but 1 copy will still cause varnish, just to a lesser degree.

It's also complicated by the fact that varnish doesn't always show up right away. However I think all of my appies with varnish have started showing at least a little by 5 or 6.

I'm also assuming that non-appaloosa horses can also carry varnish, the same as they can carry snowflake and ECA3P - it just won't be visible. This is my only conclusion based on the fact that my non-varnish appy stud, when bred to solid mares, has thrown some varnish appy babies.

So here's my liver app stud. He's 5 and doesn't have a fleck of varnish. I've used him for just one season so far so I don't have much of a sample size for foals yet (and won't for a few seasons, since it takes a couple 'years' for the varnish to show).

AH3 To The Moon

Most of his appy foals are now 3 years old and some are clearly showing varnish, some aren't. Depending on how the gene behaves, I can assume my stud has either one or zero copies of varnish. Does anybody have any more info on this gene and how it acts on phenotype?