For our first monthly mystery horse we chose Willow, a white paint horse mare. Willow’s owner Hayley gave us the following information about her mare: I’ve been told she is a maximum sabino ([homozygous] for sabino) who is chestnut based. She is…
Researchers have found there is little real truth to the age old stereotype of the hot-headed chestnut horse. Researcher Brandon Velie (previously from Sydney University) and a team from the Department of Animal Breeding and Genetics at the Swedish University of Agricultural…
We have Lavender Foal Syndrome (LFS) testing!! Lavender Foal Syndrome (LFS) is another autosomal recessive disorder that can affect full and part-bred Arabian horses. “Autosomal” disorders are equally likely to occur in either male and female horses, while “recessive” means that a…
More on our SCID test: SCID stands for severe combined immune deficiency, and it is an inherited disorder that can affect pure and part-bred Arabians. Horses with SCID have no functional immune system, so they cannot fight off infections. There is no…
Good news – we can do genetic testing on horses from outside Australia this year. We accept mane hair samples from the following countries: Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Greenland, The Netherlands, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico,…
My erudite readers are no doubt saddened by my grammar in that title. They are right to be, of course. But you have to break eggs to make an omelette, and when it’s time to describe a coat colour with one name…
Horses and ponies have a really diverse range of white coat colour markings. Frame overo markings include eye-catching white patches and often a white face accompanied by one or two blue eyes. The amount of white on a frame overo horse or…
For people, inheriting the family silver can be a mixed blessing, depending on your feelings regarding elderly cutlery or dinnerware. Horses have it easier: they don’t have any cutlery at all, and inheriting the family silver often means they have unusual –…
I expect that most of you know that only sparkling wines produced in the Champagne region of France are technically allowed to be labelled as champagne. Here in Australia, locally produced wines in this style are called sparkling wines instead. Once, at…