Historical Pony: Mayflower Maiden

Mayflower Maiden was born sometime around 1980. The first photo by Deb Noll is from 1982.  She can be distinguished from other palominos by her star. Her identification number was A2 or A02 and she may have also been called Mayflower Madame. Her parents are unknown. She has no known descendants in the current herd, but she might have some that are unknown considering her long life. She died in 2003. Her last foal is with her in the 2002 photo by Kelly Lidard. That filly was sired by Miracle Man and is the maternal granddam of Misty's Double Platinum, aka Winter, who briefly lived on Assateague.

Mayflower Maiden was a palomino so at least one of her parents had to have had the cream dilution. A palomino is a chestnut with the cream dilution. She would have passed cream along to statistically 50% of her foals. And she would have passed chestnut on to all of them. Two of her known foals were chestnut. Her last foal was a buckskin tobiano sired by a bay tobiano so she passed her cream on to her, along with chestnut recessively.
https://www.thecolorfulchincoteague.com/palomino.html

She was on the lighter colored end of palominos. This difference in color shade likely has a genetic component. It's something that's currently being studied.
https://www.thecolorfulchincoteague.com/colorshade.html