Registered: MFTHBA (gold papered) & ICHO
Birth date June 12, 2007
Parents: Hydro's Pawnee Bill GLC X DCC Strawberry Ice (parentage DNA verified)
Diego's sire is a 15.3 hand, 1200 pound, straight-coated, cremello Missouri Fox Trotter. Diego's dam is a strawberry roan from the Walker Prince T/Curly Jim line of dominant curly gene Missouri Fox Trotters.
Diego is a curly-coated, smokey blue roan Missouri Fox Trotter with a white star on his forehead, a gentle disposition, and a variety of square-gaits at liberty. I’ve never seen him pace.
DNA-Verified Color Genetics: E/e (heterozygous black), a/a (homozygous non-agouti), Cr/cr (heterozygous cream dilution). Diego also exhibits roaning like his dam. Therefore, Diego can pass on a wide variety of coat colors. Depending on the mare’s genetics, Diego’s offspring could be palomino, black, buckskin, smokey black, chestnut, blue roan, strawberry roan, smokey black roan, palomino roan, bay roan, etc. During the spring shedding season, Diego’s yearling coat colors were absolutely fascinating. He looked like a different horse almost every day...and he sure loves his toys!
Yearling Diego during spring shedding season
Two year old Diego in his winter coat
Diego will be pasture-bred to Sienna for a 2011 foal. In late 2010 or early 2011, Diego will undergo phantom training and evaluation for cooled or frozen semen shipments to a limited number of mares in 2011.
Roaning up for the summer of 2010...
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Basic equine genetics for nonscientists...
First, some basic concepts:
1) Mendelian theory defined the 'dominant' and 'recessive' labels for genes based on inheritance patterns long before modern molecular biology existed.
2) Every horse has 2 copies of every gene.
3) Every foal inherits one copy of each gene from their sire and the complementary copy from their dam.
4) A gene is dominant if one copy from either parent is enough to cause a specific trait to be expressed, for example brown eyes.
5) A gene is recessive if two identical copies, one from each parent, are needed to cause the expression of a specific trait, for example blue eyes.
The existence of a 'dominant curly gene' has been well established by a dominant inheritance pattern in hundreds of pedigrees. In other words, you can breed a curly-coated horse carrying only one copy of the curly gene to a straight-coated horse and have a 50% chance of getting a curly foal...Mendelian genetics. If one parent has 2 copies of the dominant curly gene and the other is straight-coated, then all offspring will be curly, having inherited one copy of the dominant curly gene and one copy of the corresponding straight-coated gene.
If one parent carries the recessive curly gene (1 or 2 copies) and the other carries the dominant curly gene (1 or 2 copies), then the offspring could carry both mutations at the same gene locus (location). Likewise, traits encoded by the the recessive curly gene will only manifest themselves if the foal carries 2 copies of the recessive gene, one from each parent.
Part of the confusion in this field comes from the fact that neither gene has been DNA sequenced. It is very possible the dominant curly gene is a mutation in one gene that affects coat traits and that the recessive gene is a mutation in an entirely different gene that also affects coat traits. Then, just to make life more interesting, the expression of every gene (the traits you can see in an offspring, such as brown eyes) can be modified (changed) by other genes in the DNA make-up of each individual. This can lead to false assumptions that the underlying Mendelian inheritance isn't happening. There are hundreds of genes that affect the look and feel of a horse's coat, not just one or two.
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