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The Appaloosa is an American horse breed best known for its colorful spotted coat pattern. There is a wide range of body types within the breed, stemming from the influence of multiple breeds of horses throughout its history. Each horse's color pattern is genetically the result of various spotting patterns overlaid on top of one of several ...
- The Appaloosa Is a Horse of Many Different Colors. While many breed standards discourage unique or uncommon coat colors, the Appaloosa Club encourages them.
- Appaloosas Have a Leopard-Complex. No, they don’t actually think that they’re leopards. An Appaloosa’s distinct spotted coat is produced by a gene called the “leopard-complex”
- Unusual Coat Patterns Are Linked with Eye Diseases. Appaloosas are known for their hardiness and overall good health, but their quirky coat patterns come with the risk of specific genetic diseases.
- Not All Spotted Horses Are Appaloosas. Several other horse breeds display the distinctive spotted coat patterns of the leopard-complex gene: Tiger Horses.
Jul 18, 2022 · The appaloosa horse is known for its typically eye-catching spotted coat, and many people tend to refer to all spotted horses as appaloosas. However, the appaloosa is a horse breed in its...
- Martha Terry
The Appaloosa’s spotted coat pattern is caused by the presence of a gene known as the leopard complex gene (or LP gene). The gene doesn’t guarantee a horse will have spots but they will always pass it down to its offspring, the more striking a horse’s pattern is the greater the chance of their offspring having spots.
Nov 20, 2017 · Spots: White or dark spots. A horse can be called spotted even if the spots are distributed over a certain portion of the body only. Snowflake: When a dark body is adorned with white spots or flecks, it is commonly referred to as snowflakes.
May 27, 2017 · Appaloosa patterns are simply a type of white pattern. The dark spots on a full leopard are not spots on white but holes in the white, revealing the horse’s coat colour ‘underneath’. So for instance a genetically black horse will have black ‘spots’ and a palomino will have yellowish ‘spots’.
Sep 3, 2020 · Spotting Genes. So just how do Appaloosas get their spots? It’s all in the genes! The Appaloosa Project is an international team of researchers that study the genes involved in how an Appy gets its coloring (and why that blanketed stallion can throw a solid foal!), as well as related traits.