Perlino0201.pdf

No, it’s not white. APHA’s latest approved color

is a genetically sound way to make sure

registration records make sense.

By REBECCA OVERTON Reprinted with permission from Paint Horse Journal

t happens every time Milynda

Milam takes RFF Starbuck, her

Paint Horse stallion, to a show.

People literally stop in their

tracks and stare at the 5-year-old

Paint.

With his body glowing like a pol-

ished pearl, his shimmering gold

mane and tail, and eyes that resem-

ble clear blue opals, “Buck” looks

like a horse out of a Wagnerian

opera, the equine equivalent of the

classically perfect Germanic form.

After passersby regain their

senses, they want to know what

color Buck is. When Milam tells

them “perlino,” most don’t know

what that means.

One horse show judge, who

thought perlino was a country,

asked where it was located. No,

perlino is not a country. It is the

latest coat color approved by the

American Paint Horse Association

for registration.

APHA added perlino—along

with bay roan—to its existing list

of 15 approved colors in 1999.

“A horse can be registered as

perlino if the color can positively

be identified through photographs,

the horse’s get or produce, or red

factor testing,” said APHA Regis-

trar Cindy Grier.

Buck, who is the first horse to be

registered as perlino with APHA,

has two other “firsts” to his credit.

He is the first Breeding Stock stal-

lion to earn a Superior, as well as

APHA Champion honors.

Buck lives at Red Fox Farm, the

55-acre breeding facility in Bryan,

Texas, that Milam owns with her

mother, Dr. Linda Milam. The

rare horse has a white star on his

forehead that can be seen in the

right light.

chromosomes that determine,

among other things, how an ani-

mal looks.

Color, which distinguishes Paints

from other equine breeds, is an

inherited characteristic. Like the

colors of cars or clothing, at times

certain shades become popular

among horsepeople, so breeders try

to produce animals of those hues.

For example, black-and-white

Paints have been in great demand

in the past few years, and recently

palomino and buckskin have

become “hot.”

“Palomino and buckskin Paint

Horses are popular today, much

as black-and-white Paints were

perceived several years ago,” said

Jim Kelley, APHA Registration

Department manager.

Breeders can spend barnfuls of

time and money trying to get a

colored foal, especially one of a

particular color. If a foal does not

have enough white to be regis-

tered in APHA’s Regular Registry,

it can be included in the associa-

tion’s Breeding Stock Registry if it

meets pedigree requirements.

Recently, Breeding Stock classes

have been added to some APHA

Perlinos are

pearlescent, or

cream-colored horses,

with gold or pale

reddish-orange points.

Their skin is pink.

Their eyes are blue

and their hair has

color, so perlinos

have pigment.

His genetic makeup can take the

guesswork out of a Paint Horse

breeding program, particularly one

geared to throw buckskins and

palominos. To be sure, Buck is a

horse of a different color.

What’s “hot”

So what exactly is perlino? To

understand it, get ready for a les-

son in genetics, that microscopic,

Whoville-sized world of genes and

RFF Starbuck, shown here with

owner Milynda Milam, is the first

horse to be registered as a perlino

with the American Paint Horse

Association.

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“Buck’s” ears and mane, which are darker than his body, show his place at

the end of the color continuum. A perlino is a bay horse that has been

diluted, or lightened, twice.

Offspring inherit one gene for a

characteristic from each of their

parents. Dominant genes are

expressed, whether an animal

inherits one gene or two.

Recessive genes can be masked

by dominant genes. Perlino and

cremello are incomplete dominants,

genes whose effects on an animal’s

appearance can be detected pheno-

typically (by looking at the animal).

Perlino, cremello and smoky

cream are also double-dilution

genes, which means horses of these

colors carry two copies of a color

dilution gene called the cream

gene. This gene dilutes, or lightens,

black and red, the two basic pig-

ments of horse color.

Black, bay and brown are consid-

ered black-factor colors in equines.

Sorrel and chestnut are factors of

red. When the basic pigments are

modified by other genes, like the

cream gene, they result in a variety

of colors ranging from black to ivory.

shows to allow those horses to

compete.

Perlinos, cremellos and smoky

creams are not albinos because

their hair and eyes have pigment.

Interestingly, albinism has never

been reported in horses.

“Creams closely approach being

albinos and result from a similar

genetic mechanism, but they lack

the extremely light coat color and

eye characteristics that are typical

of albinos in other species,” Spo-

nenberg writes.

Pass the cream

Color has two different compo-

nents—the phenotype (what a

horse looks like) and genotype

(the genes that determine what

color is expressed).

Perlinos are pearlescent, or

cream-colored horses, with gold

or pale reddish-orange points (the

tail, ears, mane and lower legs).

Their skin is pink. Their eyes are

blue and their hair has color, so

perlinos have pigment.

Some, like Buck, have a dark

gold dorsal stripe.

In appearance, perlino is similar

to cremello, a color approved by

APHA in 1997. Cremellos are

also cream-colored and have blue

eyes, but, unlike perlinos, the

mane, tail, ears and lower legs of

most cremellos are the same color

as their bodies.

Dr. Phillip Sponenberg, Professor

of Pathology and Genetics at the

Virginia-Maryland Regional College

of Veterinary Medicine, refers to

perlino, cremello and smoky cream

horses as “blue-eyed creams.”

Smoky creams are also cream-col-

ored, but they have more pigment in

their points than do perlinos and can

also have more color on their bodies,

Sponenberg explains in his book,

Equine Color Genetics .

Lightened once—or twice

It can be easier to understand

perlino if one thinks of it as the end

result of a continuum that begins

with a bay horse (a horse with a

Base Color

One Cream Gene

Two Cream Genes

Sorrel: Starting with a red

based horse, a sorrel or a

chestnut

Palomino: If the red horse

has a cream gene from one

parent (1), it’s a palomino

Cremello: If the red horse

has a cream gene from EACH

parent (2), it’s a cremello

Bay: Starting with a black

based horse with a bay gene

Buckskin: If the bay horse

has a cream gene from one

parent (1), it’s a buckskin

Perlino: If the bay horse has

a cream gene from EACH par-

ent (2), it’s a perlino

Black: Starting with a black

horse without a bay gene

Smoky Black: If the black

horse has a cream gene from

one parent (1), it’s a

smoky black

Smoky Cream: If the black

horse has a cream gene from

EACH parent (2), it’s a

smoky cream

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bay gene). If the horse inherits one

cream gene from its sire or dam, it

will be a buckskin. If it inherits two

cream genes—one from each par-

ent—it will be a perlino.

So, a buckskin horse is basically

a bay that has been diluted, or

lightened, once, and a perlino is a

horse that has been double-

diluted, or lightened, twice.

“You don’t see a perlino’s black

points because of the dilution, but

its points are normally darker than

its body,” Cindy Grier explained.

That’s why Buck has darker gold

on his lower legs, mane and tail.

Likewise, a red-based horse

(that is, a sorrel or chestnut) that

inherits one cream gene will be a

palomino. If the horse inherits

two cream genes, meaning the

red-based horse is lightened twice,

it is cremello.

If a black horse that does not

carry a bay gene inherits a cream

gene from one of its parents, the

result will be a smoky black. If the

black horse gets a cream gene

from each parent (so it has two

cream genes), the black will be

lightened twice, to a smoky cream.

Keep in mind that there are dif-

ferent shades of colors. How light

or dark the color is depends on

the shades a foal inherits.

For example, a buckskin foal can

be dark buckskin or light. That’s

why the equine world—and the

Paint Horse world in particular—

expresses such a rainbow of colors.

So a perlino like Buck, who

tested homozygous for black

(genetically written as EE), can

only give his offspring a black

gene. If he is bred to a bay horse

or a chestnut, his get will always be

buckskin.

Again, how light or dark the buck-

skin is depends on the color of the

mare. If the mare is chestnut or a

light, clear-coated bay, she will pro-

duce a light buckskin foal with good

contrast between its points and

body. A dark bay/brown or black

mare could throw a much darker

buckskin that almost looks grulla.

If a bay horse with a red gene is

bred to a perlino that is not

homozygous black (Ee), the off-

spring can also be palomino or

cremello. So perlino horses,

depending on their homozygosity

for black, can throw palominos,

cremellos or buckskins.

In the world of genetics, which

can be full of surprises, double-

diluted horses, like perlinos and

cremellos, are useful breeding tools.

“Blue-eyed cream horses can be

valuable as breeding animals

because they can produce a

desired color 100 percent of the

time,” Sponenberg explained.

One word of caution: Because a

horse has two genes for color (one

from each parent), bay horses can

have one black gene and one red

gene. Because red is recessive,

you can’t tell from the horse’s

appearance that it has this gene.

A red-factor test, which can

identify whether a horse carries a

red gene, takes some of the guess-

work out of breeding. The DNA

test is available from institutions

such as the University of Califor-

nia at Davis.

ley explained. “If a perlino were

registered as palomino, where it

would have been registered previ-

ously, ultimately it would have pro-

duced horses with black points out

of non-black-point Paint mares,

which is a genetic impossibility.

“Adding perlino to our registry

will help ensure our records are

genetically accurate years from

now.”

To a breed like Paints, in which

color is very important, classifying

colors correctly is vital, believes

Buck’s owner, Milam.

“Although perlinos and cremel-

los look similar, in reality, calling a

perlino a cremello is the equivalent

of calling a bay horse a sorrel, or a

buckskin horse a palomino,” she

said.

“Of course, you wouldn’t do that.

“APHA has been a leader in

providing members with informa-

tion, information we can use to

make important decisions about

our Paint Horses. Along with sex

and age, color is one of the main

ways to identify a horse.

“It’s important to get it right.”

Want to know more?

For more information about

horse color genetics and perli-

nos, the following books and

Web sites are helpful:

• Equine Color Genetics by Dr.

D. Phillip Sponenberg. Pub-

lished by Iowa State University

Press in 1996. To order, call

(800) 862-6657.

• Horse Genetics by Dr. Ann T.

Bowling. Published by Oxford

University Press in 1996. To

order, call (800) 445-9714.

• Horse Color Explained by

Jeanette Gower. Published by

Trafalgar Square Publishing in

2000. To order, call (800) 423-

4525.

• The Cremello and Perlino Edu-

cational Association Web site

at www.doubledilute.com.

• The University of California at

Davis educational Web site at

www.vgl.ucdavis.edu.

Goodbye to guesswork?

Besides their eye-catching color,

perlino horses can have another

trait that sets them apart from other

equines. If a perlino is homozygous

for the black factor (as Buck is) and

is bred to a bay horse, the offspring

will always be buckskin.

Homozygous means a horse has

a pair of identical alleles at corre-

sponding chromosome sites, or

loci. Alleles are one of two or

more alternative forms of a gene

that occupy the same position on

matching chromosomes. An indi-

vidual normally has two alleles for

each trait, one from each parent.

Accurate records

APHA approved perlino as a

registration color to ensure its

records are accurate. If it hadn’t,

it might have registered horses

with genetic pedigrees that even-

tually wouldn’t make sense.

“APHA’s registration committee

approved perlino as an accepted

color because of genetics,” Jim Kel-

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The story

of “Buck”

RFF Starbuck convinced Milynda Milam to join his team.

Milynda Milam was less than

enthusiastic about buying RFF

Starbuck when her mother, Dr.

Linda Milam, suggested it.

In fact, Milynda had no intention

of buying such a clumsy looking

18-month-old colt.

Milynda and Linda, who own Red

Fox Farm in Bryan, Texas, where

they breed custom color sport-

horses, saw “Buck” at a stallion

showcase in Austin, Texas, which

was featuring some of their farm’s

stallions.

“Buck was at one of those rather

ungainly periods some horses go

through,” Milynda explained, “and I

was rather vocal about the fact that

I did not think he was the caliber of

our other stallions.

“We had just purchased a cre-

mello stallion, and I didn’t see any

reason to buy another double-

dilute horse, especially one that

was so awkward looking.

“I did not want to buy him.”

But Linda was intrigued by Buck,

who was registered as a Breeding

Stock Paint Horse, because he was

taller and more modern looking—

the type of horse that would fit her

farm’s breeding program.

The Milams use Red Fox Farm,

which they bought in 1994, to pro-

duce Thoroughbred-type perfor-

mance horses with color.

Plus, Linda thought Buck was a

perlino, not a palomino, as he had

been registered.

After much debate and Milynda’s

continued insistence that they did-

n’t need a horse like Buck (“to the

extent that I would not give my

mother a check from our horse

checking account to buy him,” said

Milynda), Linda and Milynda’s god-

generation-color pedigree from a

pedigree service.

“As I saw the pedigree come up

on the fax,” she recalled, “I almost

fainted. The first name I saw on the

top sire list was Impressive. My

heart sank.

“I knew at that point why he had

been for sale—he had to be HYPP

positive.”

HYPP, or hyperkalemic periodic

paralysis, is a genetically transmit-

ted muscular disorder linked to

Impressive, a Quarter Horse halter

sire.

Mr Starbucks Beau was listed as

dun; Southern Sen as grullo.

Although Buck’s breeder, Suz-

anne Grant of Bend, Oregon,

assured Milynda that Buck’s sire

had tested HYPP negative, Milynda

was still worried, so she ordered an

HYPP test on Buck from the Uni-

versity of California at Davis.

Because she had noticed that

Buck’s parents both carried a black

factor, Milynda also ordered a red

factor test to see if Buck was

homozygous for black.

“If so, he would be especially

useful in a color breeding program

like ours that was designed to pro-

duce buckskins,” she said.

“Since we prefer buckskin, homo-

zygous black would be another

bonus because Buck would only

“We had just

purchased a

cremello stallion,

and I didn’t see

any reason to buy

another double-

dilute horse.”

—Milynda Milam

mother, Dr. Dianne Sand, figured

out a way to buy the colt.

“They announced he was being

delivered to the farm,” Milynda

said.

Because Buck’s sire and dam, Mr

Starbucks Beau and Southern Sen,

were registered as Quarter Horses,

their colors were not listed on

Buck’s APHA registration papers.

Milynda quickly ordered an eight-

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The story

of “Buck”

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