M'Bayar mare now OK

[Scythian]

African Treasure:




At first she looks like Apricot (chestnut with double pearl), but then there are the dark lower legs.

Looking at her pedigree, the first three generations are blacks, bays, browns, or chestnuts. Treasure's paternal (sire's line) granddam, Sweet Chest, is a flaxen chestnut. The maternal granddam, Autumn Choice, is chestnut and may have had darkening of the lower legs with age -- it's hard to tell since the gallery images of her in later years show something like shading, but most of the lower legs are covered with polo wraps.

Further back and returning to the sire's line, Sweet Chest's sire, 67.6 Slitherling Thundercloud, is a vivid red chestnut with darkened legs.
http://www.horseworldonline.net/horse/profile/894041
Please look at him while he's still alive (at this writing, he's over 24 y. o.)! His gallery image does not show legs.

Four generations back, we strike gold at last. Sweet Chest's maternal grandsire, 65.4 Chaizzled Sonnet, seems to have been Apricot (big sigh of relief: this gallery image is full body with no obscuring tack); there is no darkening of the lower legs, though.
http://www.horseworldonline.net/horse/profile/887644

In the next (5th) generation, there are more dilutes. Chaizzled Sonnet reappears: Mint Tide is a (Smoky?) Wild Bay Pearl; and 60.0 Indigo is Black Pearl.

So there are sources for Chestnut, Pearl, Agouti if that's relevant, and Smoky. There are also some Duns and there might be a mild Roan with low contrast -- it's getting late and I'm ready to give up for now.

Thanks for your attention. I hope someone else has seen this stocking-like darkening on a solid colored horse. It seems to appear in adulthood, FWIW.

[BlackOak2]

...

I'll take a stab at this. It looks like dun with flaxen. I have a couple of these appear a lot like this (without the dilution) and it is a very interesting coat color.

Some of these may be a little difficult to see, but perhaps they'll help identify the color-shift for you.

Image of this horse: http://www.horseworldonline.net/horse/profile/965032

Notice the color shift lighter on the lower legs. In my experience, both pangare and flaxen can make this happen, in this instance, this is flaxen. Your horse offers a bit of this lightening on her legs (especially visible on her back legs).


Image of this horse: http://www.horseworldonline.net/horse/profile/996043

This horse shows it really well, it could be an indication of the feather gene (he developed full feathers as an adult).


Image of this horse: http://www.horseworldonline.net/horse/profile/1028060

This one's a bit harder to see, the feathers on him are already coming in. He doesn't have flaxen, but has the lightened legs from the pangare gene.


Image of this horse: http://www.horseworldonline.net/horse/profile/1025424

This one's easier. Clearly no flaxen, but the light legs from the pangare gene.


Image of this horse: http://www.horseworldonline.net/horse/profile/1031444

Much gentler expression of just pangare on chestnut.


Image of this horse: http://www.horseworldonline.net/horse/profile/708581

This one is a much brighter version of chestnut than usual, but she shows similar bright-area markings like yours offers. Dun on chestnut.


Image of this horse: http://www.horseworldonline.net/horse/profile/576213

This one a darker version of chestnut, again with very similar markings. Dun on chestnut.


Image of this horse: http://www.horseworldonline.net/horse/profile/499000

Another Dun on chestnut.


So pangare does affect chestnut maybe a little differently than the other colors and can be mistaken for flaxen in some cases. So with all these examples (perhaps too many), I come to the conclusion that she is chestnut based, with double pearl (dark eyes give it away), and flaxen (indicative of the light-shift of the lower legs), not pangare (usually the legs shift lighter from the stomach down and not from the hooves up), and dun (giving reason to the darker legs and the barely visible face mask by her nose and under her jaw).
So Flaxen Dun Apricot.
But then again, dilutes still throw me for loops. this is just what I would determine she might be.

[Scythian]

Thanks for replying, and for all the time, thought, and work!

Dilutions, shadings, countershadings ... it's all complicated. You helped me see that she has Double Pearl (dark eyes, pink skin, no champagne freckles) and there's Flaxen in her ancestry too. However, I can't see Dun markings on her; maybe that's a hardware / software thing. I'll look again on my other computer.

Wish her and her parents (etc.) galleries’ had more images at various ages.

The thing that impressed me as really unusual is that, while her mane and tail are white with gold streaks or highlights (no black or brown), her legs are much darker than her body -- but brown, not black, as you'd see with Silver Buckskin. Does Double Pearl lighten points that much?

Again, thanks, and best wishes always!
Scythian

[BlackOak2]

Thanks for replying, and for all the time, thought, and work!

Dilutions, shadings, countershadings ... it's all complicated. You helped me see that she has Double Pearl (dark eyes, pink skin, no champagne freckles) and there's Flaxen in her ancestry too. However, I can't see Dun markings on her; maybe that's a hardware / software thing. I'll look again on my other computer.

Wish her and her parents (etc.) galleries’ had more images at various ages.

The thing that impressed me as really unusual is that, while her mane and tail are white with gold streaks or highlights (no black or brown), her legs are much darker than her body -- but brown, not black, as you'd see with Silver Buckskin. Does Double Pearl lighten points that much?

Again, thanks, and best wishes always!
Scythian

No problems at all! It's nice when things work out.

I offered the dun patternings to show how dun can offer a lighter body and darker legs. Dun doesn't always offer striped legs, a dorsal stripe, striped neck... Sometimes dun can offer just the lightening of the body compared to a darker face and darker legs. I couldn't find them, and I did try to... but I had a few dull chestnuts with almost brown legs, and no dun markings to speak of.
I do have some cream dilutions that you really can't tell they have dun... maybe they'll help to see the dun I am firmly believing your mare is expressing, the problem with these, is that I'm working on a leopard project, so it makes it that much more difficult to see, under their spotted coats:

All of these horses are palomino (chestnut and cream) with dun, take a look at what body you can see, compared to their legs and the color shading differences on their face (the end of their nose and along their jaw-line compared to their cheek and upper face).






Compared to this palomino that does not have dun:


It really is hard to tell if dilutions carry dun, if they show no definite markings for dun. Sometimes it's all about the shading. Granted, the last no-dun palomino is showing a very strong metallic expression with a much darker version of palomino than the others, but his body shade is also much more uniform.

I will attempt to find some of those brown-ish chestnuts I have that are dun with very little dun expressions. I think I've weaned most of them out however.

[BlackOak2]

Okay, so I still couldn't find them... I've been working with dun expressions in my leopard complex, specifically to show strong zebra stripes, so for a long time, more prominent markings have been appearing in all of my lines. I had to go back several generations (12, 15 and more) to find these ones.
They're not completely free of the dun, but they are harder to see and more on point, they offer the darker points versus lighter body that I've come to also identify as dun.






(on buckskin, wild bay)



These next three are perhaps the best examples I could find of minimal marking dun.
This one's on wild bay with spinal markings and a couple of rear butt markings.

This one's on palomino with what seems to be only a neck marking.

This one's on bay with a hint on the neck, and virtually nothing else.

[BlackOak2]

Well... perhaps I'm wrong (like that's never happened before! Ha!), maybe she doesn't have dun, but to me, that's what she looks like.

[BlackOak2]

I finally found an un-patterned dun.
She's a bay, but she offers the dun expression without any pattern hints. She does offer the foal stripe, though not very prominent.

[Scythian]

We often see a foal's legs get darker with age -- interesting that that can resume in adult years.

Another point worth noting is that Duns can have shading above the muzzle and on the forehead, without the more extensive full-head coloring of a Roan. I do see that kind of Dun head shading on Treasure, and I don't see any Roans in her pedigree for at least six generations.

Adamant Blueblood, above, has a subtly beautiful coat. There is a Brown Dun in Treasure's pedigree, the paternal granddam of Treasure's maternal granddam Autumn Choice -- who was the chestnut with darkened legs I referred to earlier. Here is Autumn Choice's profile page (http://www.horseworldonline.net/horse/profile/913952). And here is the profile of Choice's granddam, Chaizza:

Chaizza
http://www.horseworldonline.net/horse/profile/891300

Chaizza's dam, 60.2 Worn, was a Black (Blue) Dun / Grulla. Her sire, 65.4 Chaizzled Sonnet, looked very much like Treasure herself -- he had only one gallery image in his life, taken at 5 years, and he had the same coloring as Treasure at 5. At that stage of their lives both Chaizzled Sonnet's and Treasure's legs were about the same color as their bodies. (As we know, Treasure's became darker with age.)

Chaizzled Sonnet
http://www.horseworldonline.net/horse/profile/887644

Looking through Treasure's pedigree again (for the ? time), I see a number of vivid chestnuts, including two Flaxens, along with blacks, browns, bays, and Chaizza and her parents (duns and Apricot). Chaizza appears in both the sire's and dam's lines. Pearl is recessive and can "hide" for several generations. So that's how Treasure could become Double Pearl.

For now, Treasure has one offspring, a mare, 65.2 Fast (http://www.horseworldonline.net/horse/profile/975200), sired by Cupid (http://www.horseworldonline.net/horse/profile/956718). He was a Red Dun and Fast showed her mother's influence in a paler mane, tail, and body. She might have been considered a Flaxen Pearl Red Dun.

So ... looks like you've called it: African Treasure is Flaxen Dun Apricot! Thanks again!

[BlackOak2]

...

Perfect! It really is nice when things work out. (Yeah, I do feel like I'm repeating myself at that moment!)

She does have a very nice coloration. It is also really hard to see flaxen on any other but the regular chestnuts, so it's nice to see that even the dilutions can offer that unique flaxen leg lightening.

I'm also with you that sometimes there just aren't enough pictures taken.

[Flyer-owl]

Ohh man guys, sorry I should have seen this post!
I made 95% of all the M'Bayars out there haha ^^ It's a rather big herd, so I only take one picture after they have their most prominent adult features/reach breeding age.
The M'Bayar breed (as I have bred them) does not contain roan, champagne or any white markings. It does however contain a streak of quite heavy sootyness that appears in later adulthood. It can appear on both the back and the belly, sometimes just the legs, so that might also be it here