Dominent Whites

[Pat Mefferd]

In reading the C-NOTE'S SAWBUCK subject....Dominent White is brought up.

I believe that the early White Horses of Nebraska (American Whites)...were mainly carriers of the Dominent White gene.

It is interesting that they reported they crossed their stallion (s) on mainly bay Morgans and/or Morgan Half-breds mares.

Not much is written about these horses in current times, other than the history. Seems their popularity has wained.

We also have the Camarillo Whites here in California....I know a number of genetic color tests were done on the current living horses.

With regard to The CW's of yesteryear..it seems that when SULTAN was crossed on bay Morgans/Morgan Half-breds....he, SULTAN, got more white horses.

When Adolfo Camarillo passed and his daughter took over she started breeding to Quarter Horses...and that may have been the downfall of the CW's. Today, owners of CW's breed to many other breeds, hoping for a white...but it seems the odds are against them getting all white foals.

It is my opinion that the DW has been pretty much bred out of the CW's.

My question to those of you who study color genetics....Is there or could there be....a special connection between the Dominent Whites and the bay Morgan or Morgan Half-breed combination?


Pat
_________________
Pat Mefferd, PM MEFFERD Pedigree Research, Anderson, CA. (Retired)
Proud daughter of Fred Kennedy (1982 Stuntmans Hall of Fame)
http://members.tripod.com/~horsefame/fredkennedy.html

[Pat Mefferd]

Another thought and not a personal opinion, brings to mind....a question regarding the White Horses....

Many of the foundation Appaloosa breeders feel that the Quarter Horse was the downfall of the Appaloosa.

Could it be, that the Quarter Horse was the downfall of the Camarillo White Horses?



Pat
_________________
Pat Mefferd, PM MEFFERD Pedigree Research, Anderson, CA. (Retired)
Proud daughter of Fred Kennedy (1982 Stuntmans Hall of Fame)
http://members.tripod.com/~horsefame/fredkennedy.html

[NZ Appaloosas]

"Dominant white" isn't really one mutation, it's about 14 mutations of the same gene, and all these mutations throw similar phenotypes. My thought has been more along the lines of that as people became aware that two frame positive horses could produce an all-white foal that didn't live long, that 'fear' cropped over to more "all white" patterns, causing people to breed away from that, 'just in case' they ended up with a foal that didn't live very long.


Diane
_________________
"Nothing can be sliced so thin that it doesn't have two sides" Anon.

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[Pat Mefferd]

I don't think the Thompsons of Nebraska or Camarillos of California had problems with the lethal whites as in the APHA.
_________________
Pat Mefferd, PM MEFFERD Pedigree Research, Anderson, CA. (Retired)
Proud daughter of Fred Kennedy (1982 Stuntmans Hall of Fame)
http://members.tripod.com/~horsefame/fredkennedy.html

[x factor fan]

Pat,

The dominant white complex is very interesting to study.


Indicators of the mutation are:

Pure white coat not linked to any foal lethals
Broken white --patchy roany markings also with no foal lethals
No horses that are double dominants; expected ration when mating two
carriers would be 1:2:1, (like breeding two palominos, the breeding should produce 1 sorrel: 2 Palominos: 1 Cremello)
The ratio should be closer to 1:3, as the DW equivalent of the Cremello is a early embryonic lethal.
A founder "white" produced from two solid non-white pattern parents.

The White horses of Nebraska were most likely to have been DW.
The Camarillo horses have been tested to be DW.

There's a nice article on the Dun Central Station site that has a lot of information and is pretty novice friendly.

Here's where the speculation come in. Everything so far has been proven by current genetic science, backed up by lots of breeder observation.

I've noticed a connection between horses that carry the non-Bay version of the Agouti (in genetic terms a, not A) and full expression of the gene.

Now this could be that breeders are using black horses instead of bays or chestnuts to get the most eye catching combination of white and black. Or it could be that there is a gene located near the "a" gene that helps created the pure white coat.

It could be that just by accident, the Nebraska folks started with a mostly Morgan white stallion, and liked the Morgan breed, so collected a herd of Morgan mares. Morgans are mostly black or dark bay. So they might have had a high frequency of the mystery "helper" . They also may have started with a version of Dominant White that produces a very large white pattern.

For an example of this take a look at the Patchen Wilks white TB's. The White Fox, White Prince, Patchen Beauty, started by the Chestnut Stallion Ky Colonel.

Or the Puchilligui horses, or Airdrie Apache, where there is more of pinto/paint type marking.

Airdrie Apache is suspected of being DW, but so far his mutation hasn't been located. So he might be something entirely different.
Painted Desert Farms in Redmon OR. Take a look at the website--lovely horses.

Quarter Horses have been selected for solid base coats, not lots of chrome. They may have been selecting against any of the "mystery modifiers" that would help boost the DW. They certainly have a history of throwing out anything that isn't solid.

Appies have everything under the sun crossed into the basic light agile horse that the Indians created.

There are now stock horse (QH) type appaloosa, running type ( TB) Sporthorse (TB & Warmblood) I've even seen draft Appies (Percheron)

Which of course is a whole other can of worms.

[rodeoratdogs]

[x factor fan]

http://www.duncentralstation.com/PDF/KITGeneMutations-Castle.pdf


Try this link--nicely done article on Dominant white with good illustrations of what kinds of changes each mutation makes to the basic KIT gene.

[NZ Appaloosas]

[Pan Zareta]