There Is No Such Thing as a Black Gene

Opinion of the original author; genetics terms are simplified.

No Such Thing as a Black Gene There is No Such Thing as a Black Gene!

CAUTION - there are MANY “black” Andalusians that have not been tested to verify if they are truly black (E_aa)… use caution when breeding or buying!!!! Verify the color using a laboratory DNA test.

In the author’s view, unless a person can demonstrate that their horse is DNA-tested, the horse should be treated as “black” (not verified) and questionable.

I just got done surfing the web and doing some market research on a horse classified website. I tell you, I’m frankly a little perturbed by the, er, um, lack of quality of Andalusian horses on the market! Makes me want to scream, what is wrong with this breed! Okay. Calm down.

Now, while looking at some horses listed as black or black bay or chestnut or whatever, I see that several people are using the term “black gene” freely.

Here are some incorrect and misleading statements in horse advertising:

“ … horse carries the black gene …“.

A-hem. There is no such thing.

“ … high color producer …” listed for a bay stallion of all things. As far as I know, as long as you didn’t breed the bay to a grey, you would always get “color” (something other than grey).

So I guess that makes him a high color producer? But if you bred him to a heterozygous grey, you would have 50% chance of getting grey. And if you bred him to a homozygous grey, you would get GREY 100% of the time (no need to wait and see). Guess what I’m saying is don’t take their word for it if they can’t show you the UCDavis results and explain them they don’t know what they’re talking about.

“ … black bay …” Is it black or bay?

Which is it? Most likely it’s a genetic bay that looks dark bay/black due to sooty or smutty or the seal brown modifier.

“ … black …” Soooo.. Is it tested for black? Because the horse could be a seal brown, sooty bay, grey, or black bay and not really black.

“ … black tested …” Soooo. Tell us the results?

And the most confusing of all, an advert for a chestnut horse with grey roaning flecks said it did not carry the black gene and could only produce chestnut or bay unless bred to black, and that it had not been tested for the grey gene.

I’m not sure what black gene they are talking about. The big E? (which obviously he doesn’t have because he’s a chestnut ee). or the little a? If it’s both, eeAA. Then okay, but you could NEVER get black from him even if you bred him to black (eeAA x E_aa will not get you aa).

If he is eeAa or eeaa, then you COULD get black by breeding him to a bay that is EeAa.

If he is eeAA, then breeding to black would NOT give you a black! And if he is eeaa, breeding to black E_aa would get you black half the time and chestnut the other half.

So this person is all confused and it’s making me confused.

This person got it right.

“ …solid BLACK (EE/aa)” Now I know it is black as long as it is not grey.

WARNING - unless an owner verifies by laboratory DNA testing, do not BELIEVE that a horse is black just because they say so or the horse looks black. Colors in photographs can be doctored and horses can be dyed. “Black Bays” or sooty bays look very much like pure blacks.