Historical Pony: Tuffer Than Leather

He's not really a historical pony, but this handsome stallion is the main progenitor of another sooty family I've been tracking. This is 1994 dark bay or brown tobiano Tuffer Than Leather. He never lived on Assateague and was born on Chincoteague. Tuffy was a prolific sire and has descendants on Assateague through his black tobiano daughter Baybe. His granddaughters on Assateague are Randy, Little Miss Sunshine, and CLG Bay Princess.

Many of Tuffy's foals are sooty, some very dark sooty. Misty's Twist O' Mist is my go to example of a sooty palomino. Peregrin Took was born bay and as an adult is a shade similar to Tuffy. Chestnut daughter Mahogany's name is self explanatory. Half Chincoteague daughter Cowgirl is a bay only slightly lighter shade than her sire. I'm also seeing sooty in some of Baybe's descendants. Baybe's son Rainbow Boy Ray grew up to be a sooty palomino tobiano.

You may be thinking, what? That's a black pinto. In the right light he had a brown nose and flanks. My photos don't quite show that. And he's sunbleached in the headshot. A friend has a foal photo of Tuffy and he was definitely a bay as a newborn foal. He got darker as he grew up which is common of many sooties. The color test of his daughter Misty's Red Dawn also tells us he's not black. She has one copy of agouti. Blacks cannot have agouti because having it makes them bay. Dawn's dam is definitely black so the agoui had to have come from Tuffy. She didn't inherit his sooty though.

We know so little about the genetics of sooty. It's all observation right now. Here's what's on my website: https://www.thecolorfulchincoteague.com/sooty.html Have a sooty descendant of Tuffer Than Leather? I'd love to see!