Palomino Fox Trotters are our main passion in life and have been for over 30 years. Some call us expert but believe me, it was pure accident. So if the following sounds as though we are tooting our own horn, its simply because we have only our own experiences to draw upon and since breeding for color is usually educated guesses with a whole lot of luck thrown in, past experience is the best teacher.

We arrived at our current bloodlines with the purchase (by my father) of a little sorrel fox-trot mane when I was 12. She was unregistered at the time but was of bloodlines developed by the Quick and Copeland families in the Protem, Missouri area. We were a "horsey" family in a big way but it was a pleasure hobby. Still, this mare was so outstanding and her foals so good that my dad had her registered by performance criteria since the Association books were still open at the time.

She produced many fine foals for us and was still going strong at the age of 22 when struck by lightening. Her foals were mostly of Blankenship Diamond because both Blankenship Diamond and his son Diamond King stood in our area. My dad kept a mare from the Diamond King/"Brownie" cross; sorrel, flax mane and tail, blaze and 2 hind socks. This mare, Diamond's Princess, was the dam of our current stallion, Golden Emperor, who is out of Lawrence Barnes' fine stallion, Gold Man. Gold Man was by Golden Rawhide by Golden Governor by Ozark Golden King (registered American Saddlebred). Gold Man also carried Yellow jacket (original plantation Walker) blood through his dam. Along with the Golden Governor, Yellow Jacket is one of my favorite blood- lines for producing palomino.

We grew up, left home, and horses became a distant pleasure. But horses are not something you can ever get over once the fever has a hold. I also discovered that very few people outside of Ava, Missouri (my home town) knew what a foxtrotter was. I just assumed that everyone had a foxtrotter if they had a horse. Wrong? Married, with children, living in a metropolitan area with no space or time for horses; I found myself going to any kind of horse show regardless of breed, watching movies just because they had horses in them. In other words, trying very hard to get my "Horse fix" in any way I could. When we were able to move to the country and get a few acres, you know what my first thoughts were.

My dad was down to one horse, Golden Emperor, semi-crippled as a yearling in a fall. So I decided to buy some mares that complimented him and get back to some real old-time foundation blood for fox-trotters, my first love. It was by accident that I was able to purchase 2 mares of Yellow Jacket blood; both sorrel, but I didn't care, I simply like the way they looked and moved. Their first foals by Emperor were both palomino, and both these mares have produced palomino 95% of the time and I still have them and will till they die. Little did I know that those 2 mares (and others purchased along the way) would turn into a 60 horse herd and a way of life.

Emperor has proven to be an outstanding palomino producer for us. I have somewhat lost count but he has put over 50 palomino babies on the ground during the last 10 years (about 80%). Now at 19 we have semi-retired him, keeping him pretty much for our own use and hoping for many years yet. But we have 2 of his sons, one chestnut (Royal Heritage) and one palomino (Prince of Hearts) that we are now using. This will be the first season for Prince but Royal produced palomino for us last year. It was no surprise to see palomino out of the palomino mares, but everyone was very surprised to see that dark gold filly running beside a black mare; but one must remember that both Royal and that bladk mare carry heavy palomino blood. Since the Prince of Hearts is out of one of our Yellow Jacket mares, we are hoping he will also be as prepotent as his sire.

So our palomino program developed quite by accident. To begin with, both my husband and I fancy palomino and chestnut over any other color, soit was certainly no hardship to look out over our pasture and see red and gold all over it. Then we discovered that we can sell a palomino baby twice as fast as any other especially if they look like refined Quarter Horses with Ara~type heads and have a gait defined in heaven. And of course we needed to sell our crop consistently (they should at least pay for their own feed) and to do that palomino was the way to go.

I dug out my college genetics books and started researching bloodlines and colors. And found that I was absolutely fascinated by the probabilities and possibilities. The more I learned, the more I wanted to know.

My biggest detriment has been that background colors have never been required on Fox Trotter registration papers. When I had Emperor certified as a palomino sire for the Palomino Horse Breeders Assoc., I had to give 5 generations of color top and hottom of his papers. Thank goodness, growing up where I did, most of the names were horses I had either seen or were able to track down. But few people had that opportunity and I would like to see our Association progress toward more identification on registration papers.

The easiest way to guess on palomino production is to remember that a palomino is simply a washed-out sorrel, as a buckskin is simply a washed-out bay. The only two true colors of horses is black and chestnut and all others are a variation of these two; i.e. a diluted chestnut is sorrel, a diluted sorrel is palomino, and a diluted palomino is cremello. Breeding palomino to palomino is generally not a good idea because you are dealing with doubling up on recessive genes. Since both the sire and dam carry only chestnut and palomino genes, one has a 50% chance for palomino, 25% for chestnut and 25% for cremello.

Whereas, when breeding a chestnut to palomino, both of which carry palomino genes, chances are 50% for palomino and 50% for chestnut, thereby eliminating the cremello factor. And of course, when several generations of palomino are involved top and bottom, then the chances are usually increased to 75% palomino and 25% chestnut. This is only a general rule of thumb since 100% predictions are impossible. And you may want to breed for cremello, since it would carry only palomino gene and chances for a palomino when bred to chestnut are in-creased to nearly 100%.

Most people call a cremello an albino but true albino does not often exist. To be true albino, the animal must have snow-white hair, PINK eyes, and pink skin. So a creme horse (from dark creme to white), with blue or glass or brown eyes, and pink skin is a cremello. The dark gold hones we see are usually half palomino and half sorrel by blood. But that is not always a guaranteed fact because I have seen dark gold out of grey and black, indicating to me that both carried palomino genes in their background and these two recessives just happened to meet up. But also these palominos from non-palomino parents usually do not breed true. I call them genetic pop-ups. Like said it is an educated guessing game.

By the way, a double dilute buckskin is called a perlino, having a more rusty color to the mane and tail than does a palomino/cremello; but again an extremely high percentage of buckskin when bred to dark colors. Now there are both cremello and perlino horses that come from double dilutes of other recessive colors, for example a mostly white paint bred to a mosily white paint will most likely produce a white baby and even though it qualifies as a cremello, the blood is paint genes not palomino. I have also found that the bloodlines producing palomino in foxtrotters also are most capable of producing paints, due in part to the recessive gene pool lam sure.

I hesitate to get any more technical with this because I just might be spouting off more than most people want to know. As one of my friends so aptly put it, "I am not concerned with the bloodlines as a whole, just how it applies to me; so if I want to know more, its easy for me to pick up the phone and call you". One of the best articles I have read recently and probably most helpful to the general public with clear, concise definitions and explanations with appropriate illustrations in in the December 1992 issue of Equus on breeding for color. Should anyone have trouble getting a copy, just let me know.

Hope this may be of help to someone, use what you can and toss the rest. Every breed has a purpose and I love them all, but foxtrotters are what I know best. So HAPPY FOX-TROTTING, if you have one; and if the love of your life is another breed, then I hope its gaited!

POSTSCRIPT: Golden Emperor has gone to horse heaven since the publishing of this article and Prince of Hearts has a home in Colorado, but we have 2 Emperor grandsons that we feel just might be able to fill the "Old Man's" shoes.

EDITORS NOTE: Janice Handel sent us the following link which is a good supplement to this article if you wish to know more about color genetics. It is  Unusual Equine Coat Colors. Thank you Janice.