Coat color has been a subject of interest among horse owners for many
years, likely dating back to the start of domestication. While much interest
in coat color is due to aesthetics, color genes can also affect
a horse's health. Two examples of diseases that are associated with
coat color are Multiple Congenital Ocular Abnormalities (MCOA) with the
Silver coat color, and Lethal White Overo foal syndrome with the Frame
Overo pattern. Research in other species has examined physiologic
traits that vary with coat color, like response to pain and levels of
stress hormone in the body.
Much of the color research in our lab focuses on white patterns,
especially "new" patterns. When two horses with minimal white markings
produce a foal with over half of its body covered in white markings, a
new cause of dominant white patterning is often suspected. In other
cases, it may be that both parents had a lowly expressed pattern and
passed it on, allowing the pattern to "light up" the offspring.
If you have a horse with an interesting coat color or pattern that you
would like to include in our DNA bank for possible use in future
studies, please contact us at equinegenetics@cornell.edu