Ancient Colors?

[Argent]

I'm thinking Champagne and Cream should be dropped from Arabians. The Arab folks are always going on about how there are no purebred Arabians with dilution factors.

Also, I was doing a little reading about ancient horses, and it seems like European cave drawings depicted appaloosa patterns; I think the most appropriate breed to add them to is Tarpans, which might have also been grulla/dun.

Color rarity also needs adjusting - mostly just a reduction of dilutes, but also an adjustment of base color frequency. Not a priority, I'm sure, but it would need to be sorted before the final, permanent phase of Beta/Early access.

[larissar]

I'm considering putting the leopard complex also in The North Africa Barb (rarely) and the Forest Horse (rarely) too. More the Barb than the Forest Horse.
Although the more I think about it I'm actually on the fence about putting it into the Tarpan. It would make sense on one hand since I'm using the Tarpan to represent local landraces when I can't find a historic local breed, many of which would have been appy, but on the other hand most of the breeds created from the Tarpan (in the game) aren't typically appies.

I do know there were oriental breeds with the leopard complex which is how it came to the americas (through the ancient Spanish Jennet, I think), and some of the northern european breeds also have the leopard complex, many of which are descendant through the forest horse.
But I did notice too that many of these breeds do eventually include Tarpans if you go back farther. It just seems that Barbs and Forest Horses are a little closer in the pedigree.

So I'm about 50/50 now about including it into the Tarpan. Thoughts?

[Argent]

Most breeds aren't appaloosa in general -- and of the ~300 breeds descended from NBarbs, the vast majority are not appy either -- so perhaps it would suffice to just make the coloration quite rare in Tarpans (And perhaps Forest Horses). I think there are only about a dozen breeds with the Lp mutation. Barbs would naturally be up close because they were so popular, but that doesn't necessarily mean they originally carried the gene. Most of the Baroque-type horses I've seen with leopard spotting in old photos were from Spanish riding schools, where the horses likely would have been the result of crossing Barb horses with native -- and possibly spotted -- horses. What does your research say on the issue?

EDIT: Looking at this, now outdated, HWO Excel breed list I have, it seems as if almost every breed - all of including those with Lp - descends from the Tarpan, so excluding the Tarpan from having the Lp gene based on that reasoning doesn't actually work lol. And the Forest Horse has just a couple descendants with the gene, all of which seem to also be Tarpan descendants. I think the Tarpan is the best option for the origin of the Leopard complex, though it should be rare.

[Nate]

I'm working on updating that excel list. If you didn't make it yourself I'm about 95% sure that the one in your possession is one I made. The changes to the breed data resulted in quite dramatic changes to the % of each ancient breed the other 330~ breeds have. That might change this conversation. I have some calls to make today, but assuming those go smoothly I should be able to have it updated by the end of the day, possibly tomorrow.

[Argent]

The original document was not mine. I deleted the vast majority of the spreadsheets in it but I do recall some pages with percentages. I only kept the page with the breed crosses, and replaced the height/type/build sheet with the updated information. Most of the crosses seem to be the same.

[Nate]

Yeah, that's one of mine. Lots of the stuff in it was personally trying to figure out which breeds I wanted that fell within narrow parameters. Most of the percentages will change. Larissa mucked up Sorraias.

[Argent]

But the percentages aren't entirely relevant... I'm not sure why you're focused on that?

[Nate]

Cause I like 'em. Plus with Sorraia changing from a 3 breed horse to a 5 breed horse and it being as pivitol to lots of breeds as it is, it provides more options on where to assign colors. The appaloosa complex doesn't HAVE to go to Tarpans to get spotted Spanish Jennets anymore. Forest Horses make sense to give the spotted gene as well, but the way the breed crosses were structured before it would have had to be painstakingly cross-bred in.

[Argent]

Cause I like 'em.

Best reasoning lol

It looks like all of the breeds that should carry the leopard complex all trace back to both the Tarpan and the Forest Horse, so really either would work.

[larissar]

It's hard to find anything specific online. All I'm able to find out for sure is that the mutation exists in "wild populations", some articles did at least mention northern europe which would sound like Tarpan and Forest Horses. Although I did see a few sites mentioning ancient Arabians with the spotting pattern. They were mostly bred out thought so it's not in the modern population.

I can't find anything to back up my thoughts that it was also present in the NAB, so I guess I need to reevaluate my thoughts there.