|
High Five was a chestnut mare born in 1989. High Five was the name the old Chincoteague Pony Association gave her, along with the identification number 6. Her turnback donor family named her Cinnamon Swirl aka Cindy. Pretty much everyone from back when she was alive called her Cindy and that's what I knew her as too. Her donor family followed her for her entire life so we knew birth year and parents thanks to them. Cindy's sire was a solid chestnut called Old Red or Simon. Her dam was a bay with one sock named Silk and Lace and nicknamed Pudg. Through Cindy's dam she was a half sister to Carol's Little Freedom. Her only known foal kept for the herd was the solid chestnut mare Sashay Lady. Cindy was an extremely smart and resourceful mare who was a favorite of many. Cindy died in 2013. Her descendants in the current herd are Dreamer's Gift, Chili, Serendipity, Dreamer's Stardust, and Jersey Jaxs. Cindy was a chestnut and all 13 of her recorded foals were chestnut too. The sires of all of her foals were chestnut, so with both parents chestnut there was no other option for her foals. Two chestnuts always produce a chestnut. https://www.thecolorfulchincoteague.com/chestnut.html Since Cindy's dam was bay it's possible she inherited agouti from her or her sire carried agouti unseen. But with all of her foals being chestnut there's no way to know. I looked through her descendants to see if that would offer any insight, but nope. https://www.thecolorfulchincoteague.com/bay.html Cindy's only white was a big star. She had a few tobiano foals but the tobiano was inherited from the tobiano sire Cherokee Chief, whom she was with for many years. She occasionally would show some mealy around her nose, flank, and legs. You can see it in the first picture. https://www.thecolorfulchincoteague.com/mealy.html Cindy had a flaxen mane during parts of her life. It would come and go as it sometimes can do. She's flaxen in the second photo. https://www.thecolorfulchincoteague.com/flaxen.html
0 Comments
Hadn't planned to have a part 3 on the 2026's, but the newest unexpected addition to the herd is a bay tobaino colt Maryland transfer. He's been named the Welsey Bloxom Stallion, aka Old Dad. N2BHS-MY is his Keiper number which traces his maternal line. His sire is bay tobiano Billy Bob and his dam is bay tobiano Susi Sole. He was transferred due to his dam being hit and killed by a car. I obviously don't have any pictures of him myself yet so you can see a nice album of him here: https://horseidhelp.smugmug.com/.../202.../4-SUSI-SOLES-COLT
The Maryland herd is all related in some way because of being a closed herd since 1968, but Old Dad has some interesting ties to other transfers to his new home. He's a descendant of 1991 transfer Hot Air Balloon through his sire. His paternal great grandmother VIP was also the dam of 1994 transfer Firestar. A great grandsire Fonzi is the damsire of Moonbeam who was briefly part of the herd in 2021. More on Maryland transfers: https://www.thecolorfulchincoteague.com/assateague-horses... Old Dad is a bay like both of his parents and his two full brothers. Both of his parents carry chestnut recessively and his dam Susi Sole has a chestnut son. Whether or not he carries chestnut recessively or not is unknown. Similarly it's unknown if he has one or two copies of the bay causing agout, both are possible. He's a tobiano pinto like both of his parents. It's possible he has one or two copies of tobiano. I also think it's possible Old Dad has splashed white or another pinto pattern. His ancestor Hot Air Balloon had splashed white, we know this thanks to his Chincoteague descendants. Old Dad, his sire Billy Bob, his sire Bodacious Bob, and his dam Rosie all have signs of having something other than tobiano. It's time for my annual post going through the colors of the 2026 buyback foals. Look underneath each photo to read about that pony's color genetics. My analysis is based on their parents, siblings, other family, and their physical appearance.  Sue's Songbird from Up The Bay Ace's Black Tie Affair x Tuney Black filly Probable color genetics: possible E/E, a/a, nd1 Sue's Songbird from Up The Bay is a solid black. It's possible she has two copies of black. Both of her parents carry recessive chestnut so it's equally likely she has a copy of recessive chestnut. Both of her parents are tobiano pinto but she didn't inherit it from either of them since she doesn't have any white at all. Gold hair in a black foal's ears is a sign that she likely has non-dun1 which is what causes primitive markings such as dorsal stripes.  Loori's Freedom Surfer's Riptide x WH Summer Breeze Chestnut tobiano splashed white filly Probable color genetics: e/e, TO/n, SW1/n Loori's Freedom is a chestnut like her sire. She may carry an unseen copy of the bay causing agouti since her dam is a bay. Surfer's Riptide has never sired a bay foal out of a black mare with several opportunities so I'm pretty sure he doesn't have agouti. She definitely has tobiano from her dam and I'm pretty positive she has splashed white 1 from her sire. The amount of white she has and the shape and placement of the white says splashed white to me. Since only Loori's Freedom's dam is tobiano she only has one copy and will pass it on to approximately 50% of her foals.  Rey of Sunshine Chief Golden Eagle x Judy's Sunshine Palomino tobiano filly Probable color genetics: e/e, A/?, CR/n, TO/n Rey of Sunshine is a palomino and palomino is chestnut with the cream dilution. Both of her parents are palominos but she only inherited the cream dilution from one of them. Approximately 50% of her foals will have the cream dilution. If she'd inherited it from both of them she'd be a cremello instead. She'll pass a copy of chestnut on to all of her foals. Only her dam is a tobiano so Rey of Sunshine has one copy of tobiano pinto. Approximately 50% of her foals will be tobiano. She's on the minimal end of tobiano and that runs in her family, her dam, her dam, and her dam were all minimal tobianos. As you can see there's a genetic component to white suppression like this but we don't know how it all works yet. Rey of Sunshine has at least one copy of the bay causing agouti but you can't see it since she's a palomino. Thanks to observation and testing of her sire's foals I'm pretty positive he has two copies of agouti. Her dam has produced a black so only has one copy of agouti or none.  Liberty Archer's Gambit x Seaside Miracle Bay tobiano filly Probable color genetics: E/e, A/?, possible TO/TO Liberty is a bay carrying recessive chestnut. She inherited chestnut from her chestnut sire. She inherited black and agouti from her bay dam. Her dam appears to have two copies of both considering all 9 of Seaside Miracle's foals have been bay. Liberty's sire appears to have one copy of agouti so it's possible she has two copies since she definitely inherited one from her dam. Both of Liberty's parents are tobiano pinto so it's possible she inherited a copy of both of them. But both of them also only have one copy so it's equally likely that she only has one copy. It's possible she also has another pinto pattern like an Eden White that has been tested to be found in a family member, but there's no way to know for sure.  CLG Midnight Rebel Ace's Black Tie Affair x CLG Rumor Has It Black tobiano colt Probable color genetics: E/e, a/a, possible TO/TO, possible SW1/n The only colt kept this year is a black tobiano, even though he looks a bit weird right now! He inherited black from his sire. He carries chestnut recessively from his dam. Both of Midnight Rebel's parents are tobiano pinto so he could have inherited it from both of them or he may have only inherited it from one of them. If he has two copies then all of his foals will be tobiano pinto. His dam clearly has splashed white 1 inherited from her sire Ken. It's possible he has it too even though he doesn't really look like it. SW1 can be very sneaky sometimes! He's on the minimal side of tobiano and that's one reason why I list his sire as Ace's Black Tie Affair rather than Maverick. Ace's family, looks, and offspring show that he has an inherited type of white suppression that's pretty determined at reducing the amount of white. You can see it at work on Ace and on Midnight Rebel. This and some physical attributes are why I list his sire as Ace. I actually polled my pony friends on his sire during Pony Penning!  SCC Red Sky At Night Ajax x Thunderstorm Skies Chestnut tobiano filly Probable color genetics: e/e, possible TO/TO Red Sky At Night is a chestnut. She inherited one copy from each of her parents and she'll pass one copy on to all of her foals. It's possible she has an unseen copy of the bay causing agouti. Her bay sire has one copy and her dam has one or none. It's just as likely she has none. She's a tobiano like both of her parents so it's possible she has two copies of tobiano which would mean all of her foals would be tobiano pinto. But she might have only inherited one copy which would mean 50% of her foals would be tobiano. She has some cat tracks that sometimes indicates a homozygous tobiano, but not always. Considering how much white she and her dam have I think it's very likely they have another unknown pinto pattern. Her sire's family also seem to have something else too given their looks and one of his daughters tested to have 4 white patterns.  Halsey's Pearl Harbor
Chief Golden Eagle x Summer Breeze Buckskin tobiano filly Probable color genetics: E/e, possible A/A, TO/n, CR/n Halsey's Pearl Harbor is a buckskin, which is a bay with one copy of the cream dilution. She inherited the cream dilution from her sire and black from her dam. She'll pass cream on to approximately 50% of her offspring. She inherited the bay causing agouti from either or both of her parents. Her sire carries agouti unseen and her dam is a bay. Since her sire is a chestnut with the cream dilution she carries chestnut recessively. She'll pass chesnut on to all of her offspring. Only Halsey's Pearl Harbor's dam is a tobiano so she has one copy of tobiano pinto. She'll pass tobiano on to approximately 50% of her foals. If you see Peregrine Took today you might think he's black, but he's not. He's a fun example of age progression of sooty and shade. He was privately bred and was born in 2009. My friend Matt helped foal him out and named him. He took the first two pictures. As a foal Pippin was a pretty normal looking bay tobiano foal. The first photo is when he was a newborn. The second was when he was a little older and he'd lightened up in the sun. The third photo is when Pippin was a yearling. His head has gotten dark but can still see the bay on his back. The last two are from this past January. Look how dark he is! Can hardly see any of his brown. I took the headshot specifically because you can see in it that his nose is still brown. If he wasn't a pinto with such distinctive markings you'd almost think he was a completely different pony from the foal. Looking at Pippin's pedigree this dramatic color shift makes sense. His sire is Tuffer Than Leather who sired multiple sooty ponies, and is the ancestor of more thanks to his daughter Baybe. Interestingly Pippin looked pretty similar to his sire as a foal and as an adult. So it appears father and son went through a similar color shift as they aged. Pippin's dam Zebie Beebe Bella was also a sooty buckskin, you can see her behind him in the newborn photo. Sooty and color shade can't be tested for but you can see in Pippin how it's probably genetic in some way. I really hope someone figures it out in my lifetime! https://www.thecolorfulchincoteague.com/sooty.html https://www.thecolorfulchincoteague.com/colorshade.html
Chickadee is one of a pretty big group of 2013 buybacks. Her sire is the half Arabian chestnut tobiano Courtney's Boy and her dam is the bay tobiano Black Star. I featured her dam last week and one of her dam's granddaughters last month. Her 2011 full sister Beacon was also kept, but she died as a young mare. Chickadee hasn't had any foals kept for the herd yet. One of her daughters has been color tested and her results are here: https://www.thecolorfulchincoteague.com/.../tested-pony... https://www.thecolorfulchincoteague.com/arabian.html https://www.thecolorfulchincoteague.com/halfarabian.html Chickadee is a bay carrying recessive chestnut. Her Black Star dam was too. She inherited the chestnut from her chestnut sire Courtney's Boy. Also like her dam she might also have two copies of agouti since she hasn't produced a black foal in 10 foals. Three of her bay foals were sired by the black Ace's Black Tie Affair. Her color tested daughter is homozygous for agouti. https://www.thecolorfulchincoteague.com/bay.html She's a tobiano pinto like both of her parents but she only inherited one copy of tobiano. We know this because 3 of her foals have been solid, not pinto. https://www.thecolorfulchincoteague.com/tobiano.html Chickadee has a cool roaned star. This is likely from roaning that often happens on tobianos. https://www.thecolorfulchincoteague.com/roaning.html Chickadee's daughter Tallulah tested to have two other white/pinto patterns: White 34 and White 35. It's possible one or both of them could have come from Chickadee. No way to know at this point. https://www.thecolorfulchincoteague.com/white34.html https://www.thecolorfulchincoteague.com/white35.html She one of my commonly used examples of mealy on a bay. That's the light colored hair around her nose and on her flanks. Her full sister Beacon also had a good bit of mealy. Mealy is genetic in some way but we don't know the how yet. https://www.thecolorfulchincoteague.com/mealy.html   This mare is a matriarch of a line of ponies in the current herd. Black Star was born August 1998. Her sire was the dark bay/brown tobiano Witch Doctor and her dam the solid chestnut Rap the Wind. None of her grandparents have been identified yet. Black Star had four daughters kept for the herd, two of which made it to produce their own foals: her first foal Scottiee's ET in 2002, Beacon in 2011, Chickadee in 2013, and CLG Wild Star in 2016. ET has then had four daughters kept for the herd; one of which was recently featured Sweetheart who has a stallion son. Black Star died winter 2021. The second photo was taken the fall before she died. Black Star was a bay carrying recessive chestnut. She inherited chestnut from her chestnut dam. She also produced 3 chestnut foals to tell us that. Black Star may have had two copies of agouti since she never produced a black foal out of 13 foals. https://www.thecolorfulchincoteague.com/bay.html https://www.thecolorfulchincoteague.com/chestnut.html Black Star was a tobiano pinto like her sire. Since her dam wasn't a tobiano she could only have had one copy of tobiano. Her two non pinto foals also tell us that. https://www.thecolorfulchincoteague.com/tobiano.html She and her granddaughter Sweetheart are somewhat similarly marked. This is because they both likely have some type of white suppression. It was trying to keep away her white markings. If you trace the big dark spots on both of her back look like they shouldn't be there and instead be white.   This little guy's owner Kendy with the 𝑪𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒄𝒐𝒕𝒆𝒂𝒈𝒖𝒆 𝑷𝒐𝒏𝒚 𝑫𝒓𝒊𝒍𝒍 𝑻𝒆𝒂𝒎 asked me to go through his genetics since they're quite interesting! Misty's Sirocco isn't color DNA tested yet, but both of his parents have been. Sire, Ace's Tidewater Promise: A/a, E/E, nd2/nd2, TO/n, CR/n Dam, Misty's Storm Chaser: a/a, E/e, nd1/nd2, TO/n Sirocco is black like his dam but the why is a bit more interesting. Misty's Storm Chaser carries recessive chestnut from her chestnut sire Cezanne. Ace's Tidewater Promise is homozygous for black so he can only sire bay, black, buckskin, and smoky black foals. Despite Chase's recessive chestnut the pair of them could never have produced a chestnut or a palomino. https://www.thecolorfulchincoteague.com/black.html It's pretty common for black foals to look a bit...weird. That greyish color he had as a newborn and the faded looks he's gone through is pretty common for black foals. Black foal coats bleach pretty badly in the sun so when I get to see him later this month he'll look pretty faded! He's pretty sunbleached in his 3 month birthday photo a few days ago. https://www.thecolorfulchincoteague.com/blackfoals.html Sirocco's sire is a buckskin and I'm pretty positive he inherited his sire's cream dilution. That makes him a smoky black. Cream dilutes red pigment so it has little to do on a black, but Sirocco gave us a big hint. If you look closely at Sirocco's newborn photos he had dark blue eyes. Those are baby blues and have now turned brown. Baby blue eyes are found on foals with the cream dilution: palomino, buckskin, and smoky black. Not all cream dilute foals have baby blue eyes but some like Sirocco do. https://www.thecolorfulchincoteague.com/smokyblack.html https://www.thecolorfulchincoteague.com/smokyblackfoals.html https://www.thecolorfulchincoteague.com/foalblueeyes.html It used to be theorized that black foals with light colored hair in their ears was a sign they are smoky black. You can see the light colored hair in Sirocco's ears in the second photo. This theory has been found to be incorrect. What was found is that black foals with that colored hair in their ears have non-dun1. Sirocco's dam Storm Chaser was tested to have non-dun1 so he probably has it too. His dam had that when she was a foal. https://www.thecolorfulchincoteague.com/primitivemarkings... Both of Sirocco's parents are tobiano pintos and their DNA tests showed that both of them each have one copy of tobiano. Thanks to random chance neither of them passed tobiano on to him. https://www.thecolorfulchincoteague.com/tobiano.html
Sweetheart is a 2011 mare by the half Arabian Wild Bill and out of Scottiee's ET. Her spicy damsire Attitude was also a half Arabian. I think she looks more like her sire in general than her dam. Her name is actually a nickname. Several of us have tried to track down her buyback donor (I met her before the auction!) to find out what name she chose. No luck so Sweetheart she remains. Only one of her foals, her second, has been kept as a buyback but he's a stallion. Her buyback son is CLG Tomorrow's Tidewater Twist. https://www.thecolorfulchincoteague.com/arabian.html https://www.thecolorfulchincoteague.com/halfarabian.html Sweetheart is a bay like her dam. She has a recessive copy of chestnut from her chestnut sire. She only has one copy of the bay causing agouti, because she's had a couple of black foals. https://www.thecolorfulchincoteague.com/bay.html She's a tobiano pinto like her dam. Despite most of her foals being tobiano she only has one copy. Sweetheart's sire was solid and her first foal was also solid. https://www.thecolorfulchincoteague.com/tobiano.html It looks like Sweetheart has some type of white suppression and her pinto is somewhat minimal. It looks like pieces of her pinto markings are missing and that's where the suppression stopped white from going there. Several of her foals have shown signs of having white suppression as well. You can see she's giving me the eye in both these pictures and it looks that way because she has visible white around her eyes, also known as white sclera. The shape of the eye is why sometimes you can see the whites of their eyes. https://www.thecolorfulchincoteague.com/whitescleraeyes.html You can see full pages of pictures of her and of almost all of her known pedigree in my new books The Chincoteague Ponies of Assateague. Sweetheart and her son are on the cover of the mare book thanks to a photo by Dana Dutton Dunne. Find out how to purchase at mistyslegacy.com   Cherokee Princess was born in 1988 in Maryland. Her sire is unknown and her dam is the unnamed N4B. Her Keiper number is N4BM and she was known as Cutthroat in Maryland. She got that name from the strip of white under her neck. There's a picture of her in the book Into the Wind Wild Horses of North America by Jay Kirkpatrick and Michael H. Francis. She was transferred to Virginia in 1994 along with her 1991 colt and 1992 filly Ponella. They were part of a group of problem horses that had gotten too used to people. Her colt was sold at the 1994 and her daughter Ponella probably remained as part of the Virginia herd but we're unable to trace her at this time. Cherokee Princess was assigned the identification number A35. With the incomplete records we have now no foals were ever sold at the auction with that number. From that we don't think she ever foaled in Virginia. But that's not completely certain so the search for information continues! She died in 2008 and I thought it was cool that she was in the herd of fellow Maryland transfer Spirit of Assateague at the end of her life. Assateague Horse transfers: https://www.thecolorfulchincoteague.com/assateague-horses... Cherokee Princess was a bay and her 1991 son was also a bay. We don't have enough information to know if she carried recessive chestnut or how many copies of agouti she had. Bay: https://www.thecolorfulchincoteague.com/bay.html She was a tobiano pinto and had one copy of tobiano. We know this because her son wasn't a pinto. She had quite a lot of white so I think it's pretty likely she had another white/pinto pattern. What it actually was there's no way to know. Splashed white is in the Maryland population, but it could have been anything. Tobiano: https://www.thecolorfulchincoteague.com/tobiano.html See a full page of pictures of Cherokee Princess in my new book The Chincoteague Ponies of Assateague Volume II: Mares! mistyslegacy.com   Foaling season offers an opportunity to find out more about the genetic makeup of the ponies on Assateague. Since we can't test them we have to use their parents and during foaling season their foals to figure things out. Here's the updates I've noticed so far this year: -CLG Pennies from Heaven: Her colt is black so she only has one copy of agouti or A/a -CLG Rider on the Storm: He sired a chestnut colt so he carries recessive chestnut or E/e -CLG Rumor Has It: Her colt is black so she only has one copy of agouti or A/a -Corrie's Little Miss Magic: Her colt is solid so she only has one copy of tobiano pinto or TO/n -Kismet's Velvet Kisses: Her filly is black so she only has one copy of agouti or A/a -Ms Shampine: Her colt is solid so she only has one copy of tobiano pinto or TO/n -SCC Aurora: Her colt is solid so she only has one copy of tobiano pinto or TO/n -Wendy's Carolina Girl: Her colt is solid so she only has one copy of tobiano pinto or TO/n I started keeping track of their genetic makeup on my website here: https://www.thecolorfulchincoteague.com/virginiacolorgene... It's also found in the ICPAR's Foal Pedigree Guide which can be purchased here: https://www.chincoteagueponyassociation.shop/.../ZMNPJBNI...  |
Amanda Geci
Info and updates about Chincoteague Pony Color. These are also posted to my Facebook Page. Archives
August 2026
Categories |
RSS Feed