Some colour checks again

[Tjigra]

Hei, it's me and my cryptic duns again
Wolf C

Is he dun? I couldn't find anything definitive to say that he is, plus his dam was usually throwing clear duns, not the cryptic ones. But he seems to be a bit off-colour on the top.

Rusty Flame C

Neither of her parents appear to have dun, but her legs are lighter at the ankles. Is that the double flaxen she must be carrying, or I've got a new level of cryptic dun in one of the parents?

Wild Tide C

This one also appears to have had some accident with a mild bleach on her legs and tail. Cryptic dun or something else?

Ilf Meghan

Red dun with some sooty to mask it a bit?

Pale Orange

He is both dun and roan, right?

Brave Envy C

This one seems to have some anti-stripe on his back (lighter than the rest of the body). Is that an effect of sooty?

And now about the eyes...
Arctic Jade C

Casper's Jasper

Two half siblings (same sire, different dams), two sets of tiger eyes, just very different two sets - one is green, the other is bluest I've seen so far, even though both horses are black. Is it the single cream the colt has that makes the difference in the eyes, or is there something else?

[BlackOak2]

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Those cryptics...

Wolf C does appear to be a cryptic dun. There appears to be a very slight mask over the body, and there at the ankles, there is a bleaching of color that comes from the back of the ankle forward. These are definitely indications of dun. As for usually throwing 'clear' duns... it could mean the cryptic format came from genes the other parent is carrying, or there is a random gene for this cryptic format that just happened to throw instead, or alone.

Rusty Flame C does not appear to have dun. The bleaching on the ankles appears to be caused by the flaxen gene. If you look at Wolf and Rusty side by side, you'll notice that their ankle bleaching is coming from two different areas. Dun comes from the back of the ankle forward, while flaxen comes from the hoof, upward.

Wild Tide C. This does not appear to be dun. This looks like it could be caused by pangare, this is a trait that pangare throws, but I see no other indications of pangare. Pangare is generally uniform throughout the body. This also could be part of that plume-like gene we don't know too much about... but I don't see other strong signs of that either. And this also could be just an expression of bay. Take your pick. With no clear, definite answer, I come to the conclusion that this is just bay. But that's my opinion.

Ilf Meghan. Yes, sooty on red dun. With no gallery images between two years and 18 years, it's a bit difficult to say whether it's progress of static. It likely came on just before she turned 5 years and hasn't changed since, but perhaps not. Either way, sooty on red dun.

Pale Orange. I agree with you. Both Dun and Roan. I don't immediately see any other genes at play.

Brave Envy C. I think this is related to the metallic gene and not necessarily to dun, sooty or just the base color expression itself. But I could be wrong with that. Brave is certainly a strong metallic. He COULD also have dun, there does appear to be a mask, but strong metallic also sometimes makes it look like a dun mask when in fact, it is not. Of course, I could be wrong.

The eyes.
No, it is not a single cream that is making a mock-blue eye. I had been wondering if the tiger eye, like many of our genes, can be bred with different expressions of color.
These are both green-colored; one hazel, the other an aquamarine. So I think you've just answered my question. Tiger eyes do have very different expressions, not just related to the base color of the horse, but also the genes the tiger gene offers as well. Very nice.

[Tjigra]

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Those cryptics...

Thanks
As to Brave Envy, I didn't even suspect dun, but now that you said it, I went back to his parents to search if that's even possible. His sire is a brilliant chestnut, I don't think THAT colour could ever hide dun, but Brave's dam is so sooty she could hide almost anything under it - an early sooty at that, she's very visibly darkened even before she was 1. So I went to check out her pedigree, and even though I didn't find anyone definitely dun, I found quite a few that could very well be cryptic. I did notice however, that all those horses in Brave's pedigree that are dappled, do have that lighter stripe on their backs, so it might as well have something to do with the dapples.

Wild Tide and her bleach accident... I noticed I have another one, even more pronounced than Tide, and they are both loosely related - Alaska's granddam One Big Chick is also Tide's great-granddam on sire side. The horses between them are mostly black, however now that I look more closely at them, I do notice some lighter streaks in their tails and manes (Chick has them too). I suppose that might be some light expression of plume then. My one bleached black I believe to have plume is not related to this line though. I should breed one of them to some more expressed plume to see what that does I suppose.

Alaska C - another bleached bay


Positive C- unrelated bleached black

[BlackOak2]

Those cryptics...

You may be on to something.
That bleached black, though... I think it's that color because of the brilliant metallic that it has.
And that actually could be where it's coming from. I'm just not sure. These genes are as difficult to deal with as real life genes!
The only way to know for sure is to breed for it and see if the expression can be increased and separated out from other genes.