Flaxen and Silver

[Stick]

So... I thought I was pretty good at recognizing when a horse is chestnut/flaxen and when they are black-based/silver, but now I'm not so sure. I was surprised by this guy--




He's clearly black-based and thus must be silver, but I hadn't thought he'd had that gene in his ancestry. On his sire's side, there are just a couple of Tarpans, so no silver there. On his dam's side, there are what I'd thought was flaxen and chestnut. So, my question is: are those flaxen/chestnuts actually misidentified silvers, or are they truly chestnut and the silver was just hiding and waiting to be expressed on a black base? Or, am I totally off-track and am not understanding the situation at all?

Any help here would be great. I've totally confused myself.

[BlackOak2]

So... I thought I was pretty good at recognizing when a horse is chestnut/flaxen and when they are black-based/silver, but now I'm not so sure. I was surprised by this guy--

He's clearly black-based and thus must be silver, but I hadn't thought he'd had that gene in his ancestry. On his sire's side, there are just a couple of Tarpans, so no silver there. On his dam's side, there are what I'd thought was flaxen and chestnut. So, my question is: are those flaxen/chestnuts actually misidentified silvers, or are they truly chestnut and the silver was just hiding and waiting to be expressed on a black base? Or, am I totally off-track and am not understanding the situation at all?

Any help here would be great. I've totally confused myself.

To start, before I look at the horse... You can easily have flaxen chestnuts with a hidden silver gene, thus having silver foals. Just like when pearl hides, silver can still be carried and hidden under the chestnut coat. So you're not incorrect with your thinking.

Now to look at your horse.

******

Definitely silver bay dun.
It did come through Mighty Chip and originated from Rosewater.
Mighty Chip is a flaxen chestnut dun pangare, so again this mare is hiding the silver gene she inherited from her mother.
Rosewater is a flaxen chestnut pangare, so she was hiding the silver gene.

Silver can't hide on black-based horses, but it does on red. It's very similar to pangare, where it will hide on a black coat but can't hide on the other colors.

[Stick]

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Phew! Okay, so I didn't actually miss anything. Those two mares in his lineage are chestnuts who just happened to be hiding silver. That's what I'd guessed, but I was definitely second-guessing myself. I thought maybe his chestnut dun mother was actually somehow bay dun, and the silver and dun had just made it really hard to spot, or maybe I'd misunderstood how some of these genes worked entirely.

I am relieved to know that this is just my first case of finding sneaky silver for myself. Thank you for putting my mind at ease.

[BlackOak2]

.

Phew! Okay, so I didn't actually miss anything. Those two mares in his lineage are chestnuts who just happened to be hiding silver. That's what I'd guessed, but I was definitely second-guessing myself. I thought maybe his chestnut dun mother was actually somehow bay dun, and the silver and dun had just made it really hard to spot, or maybe I'd misunderstood how some of these genes worked entirely.

I am relieved to know that this is just my first case of finding sneaky silver for myself. Thank you for putting my mind at ease.

It certainly helps when flaxen appears as pink and silver appears as white. Those two chestnuts you had were really dark, considering that they're chestnuts and not bays, so I can see why you would second-guess it.
I've been fooled before, I think we all have.