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Viajoy · Mar 1, 2023 10:55 AM

This will be a series so if you are interested in this, please bookmark it as it should be getting updated monthly. Questions and comments are welcomed, either here or via PM.

My first ever breeding project is going to be creating a line of horses that have any base coat, though preferably a darker color for a better contrast, with the ONLY white markings being splash, and white spotted (SW1 + W2) I am also going to be very strict with who I am keeping back, to try and get at least a very high SBA acceptance rate as well as consistent paper standings, info will be listed below. I am still not to sure about genetics so hopefully this will be a good starter project. OH? What's this? Aviatrix horses should ALWAYS be evenly lined with NO line breeding. These rules still apply for this project. It adds to the fun!

I gained inspo from Blue Moores discussion post for mine. Check theirs out!

I am not 100% sure on how breeding for colors works so I'm going into this as a newbie, part of the reason I'm not trying for a base color, but a pattern.

The Stallions

My foundation stallion that I will be using is Rising Star (Linked below) as well as other foundation stallions with either a white spotted gene or a splash gene. As far as I have realized the only herd helper that allows me to have a white spotted gene WITHOUT adding on in the GMT lab is Catch A Blue Moon as well as some Day At The Beach HH. The problem with this is, Catch A Blue Moon also has many other white genes, but on the positive side many of them already contain splash. I will be searching for a Catch A Blue Moon/Day At The Beach stallion to add into my pasture of 100 mares that are my starters. Many of them have splash or are Catch A Blue Moon mares. I'm hoping that by having both a regular splash stallion and a white spotted stallion that I will have a mix of foals that contain both these genes. I will be trying to lock in both genes as fast as possible, so foals with both genes will be of greater value to me then just a splash.

E3 1G Rising Star
Rising Star
E/E, A/a, nd1/-, -/f, P/p
W20/-, -/SW1, -/PATN1

The Mares

In my pasture I have 100 mares, most of which are probably splash. I am still going to be going in and out removing mares and adding in new horses with splash or herd helpers. All mares are yellow papered or higher (Rising Star is B papered and so may not match perfectly with some mares). All horses are foundations.

https://mesa.huntandjump.com/adv_search.php?runsearch=go&jump=0&stallion=0&gelding=0&spayedmare=0&owner=1615&pasture=0&56=0&57=0&58=0&59=0&60=0&61=0

The Foals (February)
All foals for this project must have splash, white spotted or both. For second generation foals I WILL not worry too much about other genes but if they have other white genes they will be bred to stallions with just splash. They will also have to be superior to dam/sire, pass SBA, and have papers of B/Red or higher.

E2 2G Ray Of StormSPL
Ray Of Storm
This filly did pass my critera to be kept behind. She is red papered, Passed SBA and is superior to her sire. Her sire is not Rising star but my Shades of Pale stallion which is why she is so colorful. I will use her in the future due to her outside genetics.
She only has one copy of splash so I need to breed her to another plain splash to get rid of her other white genes and add that extra splash.

E3 2G Alpine StarSPL
Alpine Star
Alpine did pass the criteria above. She is from Rising Star so she will have to be bred in the future to outside lines. This is where this project can/will get tricky.
I want to breed this lady to white spotted stallion. Probably Gold Blade. Her genes are good.

E3 2G Rising DuchessSPL
Rising Duchess
Duchess passed criteria. She is from Rising Star so will have to be bred to outside stallions.
One more with only splash. Its good. More white spotted stallions.

E3 2G Papaya StarSPL
Papaya Star
Papaya passed criteria with flying colors. She also is very pretty and she makes me want to add Rabicano into the project. She is BLUE papered, but is A Rising Star foal so I cannot breed her to her half brother who is also amazing.
Papaya also has W20 which I will try to get rid of. I will breed her to another plain splash to get rid of her other genes before breeding her offspring to a white spotted stud.

E3 2G Star On Fire
Star On Fire
This mare also passed criteria. Another Rising Star. Its good that his foals are passing criteria but that is more outside stallions or new genetic lines.
She has some roan I need to breed out but I'm not to sure if I will consider roan a 'white marking' in this project due to the fact its not entirely a white marking.

E3 2G Kissin Stars
Kissin Stars
This stud colt is our first colt to pop up. He passed criteria and is a Rising Star colt.
He has W20 and needs to breed to plain splash or plain white spotteds.

E3 2G Rising Birch
Rising Birch
Birch also passed criteria. He is muchh prettier than Kissin Stars even though they have the same phenotype.
More W20 but has 2 copies of splash. Defiantly may breed him to other splash's but most definitely to white spotted's.

E3 2G Rising Halo
Rising Halo
THIS little man is my main second generation stallion. He has exceptional producing splash full lines, he is superior to sire, he was the best In Pasture Feb 2023, he passed SBA and I even saved up to max him out. Oh and he has A papers. I'm hoping when I get to breed him in April he will make plenty of people happy. Sadly most horses in this project will be half siblings to him.
He doesn't have two copies of splash but he doesn't have any other white markings. Breed to white spotted mares.

E3 2G Gold Blade
Gold Blade
Gold is going to go up with most of the mares listed above. He has that white spotted gene I love and his only other white marking is rabicano. He passed criteria. He is not a Rising Star stallion
His gene that gives him that very pretty white spotting W2 and thats what I'm looking to be passing on.

E2 2G Rising Breeze
Rising Breeze
Breeze passed criteria. I do not plan on breeding him.

If any questions arise please feel free to post here! Any advice is welcome.

RamshornRanch · Mar 1, 2023 1:26 PM

One suggestion I have, is that you could find a Catch a Blue Moon Stud and GMT him to remove the white patterns you don't want or add Splash. That will make it easier to get batches of foals that are closer to your desired result.

TheBlueMoors · Mar 1, 2023 1:57 PM

Wee what fun! I am glad my project helped inspire this post. You have some good thoughts and a good idea of where this project is going which is good.

I have some thoughts about the patterns you are aiming to pull together. First I am EXCITED to see the results of w2 and splash paired together for your project. It can be a beautiful combination that catches a person's eye. White factor and w20 may need to receive heavy consideration as you navigate through this- with either pattern, anytime a white booster such as w20 gets mixed in (either purposefully or not purposefully), you can end up with an all white horse which defeats the purpose of showcasing how both patterns interact together. White factor can also help boost a horse with both w2 and splash into the all white zone or even risk a dead foal if there is simply too much white. W20 is rather prevalent and can be a pain to get rid of, espeically if the HHs you are trying to use are limited in scope of the patterns you want to use. I am still weeding out w20 from my herds myself so I am right there with you.

White factor can also be somewhat mitigated by selecting mares/studs with lower white factor. I would suggest looking at the horses that you like best in terms of their color versus white areas to see where you should be selecting your breeding stock at or even tweaking to a lower factor if they are otherwise perfect.

Another thought I had is if you develop several studs that aren't necessarily homozygous for all the patterns, you can run several herds that would help promote your genetic diversity. If you had 1 stud homozygous for splash only, 1 stud homozygous for w2 only and 1 stud homozygous for both splash and w2, you can run a wide variety of mares between the 3 and produce a variety of foals that can then be "mixed and matched" to develop zygosity for splash and w2 without having to sacrifice genetic diversity. Just thinking out loud here. RamshornSportHorses has a great suggestion above about modifying a Blue Moon HH base. You could even take it one step further and add in another copy of w2 and your stud'd be guaranteed to pass down 1 copy of w2 and splash to every single one of his babies.

If you are concerned about the appaloosa spotting on the Blue Moon helper, you can remove the LP- the PATN gene is only visible when LP is present so the spots would not be present.

Viajoy · Mar 1, 2023 4:35 PM

@Ramshorn: I do enjoy that idea as I’m assuming many times removing genes is cheaper than adding them. Thank you!

@Bluemoors: thank you for all the advice. This will be my first breeding project. I definitely have already thought about W20 and all foals that end up with it will be bred to another stud/mare that doesn’t carry it to try and get rid of it. if a dam or sire throws it consistently they will be ‘culled’. Besides that I do have a mare I bought in auction that I need to add into this discussion that has the genetic traits I’m looking for, though sadly she carry’s the M white spotting not the W2, I would also like more splash in my horses.

E1 2G Killer Kelly

Viajoy · Mar 1, 2023 6:22 PM

Adding to my list of stallions to use is this wonderful man! I have named him Lightning And Rain. I did some GMT work to him and am very happy with how he turned out. He will have his own pasture of ladies to work with and will hopefully add some diversity to the herd! He is hom for W2 on both his embryos and on his first one is hom for SW1 and het on his second set. He doesn’t have any other white genes.

E3 1G Lightning And Rain

SummerMonarch · Mar 1, 2023 6:24 PM

Huh. Maybe I should try adding W20 to my Belton boys.

RamshornRanch · Mar 2, 2023 3:17 PM

If you are interested I would be willing to sell these W2 or splash foundation mares.

5,000 for any of these:
https://mesa.huntandjump.com/horse.php?horseid=1947477
https://mesa.huntandjump.com/adv_search.php?runsearch=go&jump=0&hpp=100&ageg=3&stallion=0&gelding=0&spayedmare=0&bty=0&lined=0&owner=12824&barn=27103&barn_lm=not+like&29=1&56=0&57=0&58=0&59=0&60=0&61=0

4,000 for this one:
https://mesa.huntandjump.com/horse.php?horseid=1795561

Viajoy · Mar 5, 2023 8:12 PM

March ‘23

Pasture has about 10 more days until I will let it auto breed. The reason I am doing this, and not breeding them manually is to let my mares rack up as many days in pasture as possible. I didn’t have very good luck with my non-pasture breeding this year, I think only 5 passed SBA and the ones that did were not apart of this project. In a post below I will talk about them. So, on the day that my pastures breed I should have a total of about 130 ish foals, soley for this project. Go big or go home right? My pasture of 100 is sired by Rising Star (previous post) and a new stud Blood Money

E4 1G Blood Money
Blood Money
e/e A/a Sty/Sty f/f P/P SB1/W2 -/PATN1

My hope with my primary pasture is that since I have just a splash stud and just a W2 stud that I will hopefully be able to get a good variety of foals coming out that have both, if not only one. Most mares in that pasture are older mares so they may not exactly follow my breeding rules but that’s ok. I’m just starting out.

But then I also have a 2nd pasture full of ~30 mares for my other stud called Lighting and Rain.

E3 1G Lightning And Rain
E/E a/A -/+ -/DP p/p W2/W2 SW1/SW1
E/E a/A -/Prl -/+ -/DP p/p W2/W2 -/SW1

I did some pretty big GMT work on him so he will have a smaller amount of mares so I can keep his offspring longer and so I don’t ever end up breeding his foals to him. After I’m done breeding for the year I will end up offering him up for grabs. Most mares in his pasture are either splash or W2 and splash. I’m hoping for a good pasture report out of him.

In the meantime though I got my hands on a W2 and Splash herd helper, so I have been busy making my fair share of creates. I’m trying to lock in genes as soon as I can to then try and focus more and more on breeding ability.

I will update below with foals from the non-pasture season

Viajoy · Mar 5, 2023 8:26 PM

March ‘23 Non-Pasture breeding foals
Any foals that didn’t improve paper level, have unwanted white genes, didn’t pass SBA, or are not superior to sire/dam will be neutered, this is to keep lines from dumping in quality

E4 2G Bloody Threats
Bloody Threats is a gelding and for good reasons. His paper level didn’t improve, which would’ve made him a gelding anyways, but he also carry’s the frame gene, something I need to get out of these lines, and I want to by the second generation, since none of my project studs have it. He duh didn’t make SBA which means he never got comparison tested.

E4 2G Smokey Money
Smokey Money didn’t pass SBA, and also has frame, as well as only one copy of each gene needed. The good news is though, even with 3 white genes on her, the white factor is still Light. This gives me high hopes for this project.

E4 2G Blood Promise
Blood Promise is a stubborn foal. Even though her dad has W2 and her mom is a splash she refused to inherit either or, so she will be auctioned off. She would make a super cute show pony though

E4 2G Shadow Money
Shadow Money has all the correct genes and gives a good idea of what a all het horse would look like for this project, but he didn’t pass SBA or improve in papers

E4 2G Blood Dreams
And another stubborn Blood Money foal that refused to get either gene.

All neutered horses from this project will be auctioned off. I will list the link here at the end of the breeding season for the auction for the project. Pretty show ponies galor!

Walywoohoo · Mar 6, 2023 5:28 AM

I love your descriptions!

Viajoy · Mar 9, 2023 9:18 AM

I couldn't hold back. I bred my small pasture. Here's the report.

7 foals did not survive out of 30 mares. This is about a 24% mortality rate. Not great but its to be expected cause some of the mares do carry frame and that is a lot of white. I'm hoping that this is the worst rate for all my pastures.

The Foals

Best Of Pasture

E3 2G Best Rain
Best Rain
E/e A/A Prl/- -/f DP/- p/P W2/- -/SW1 -/PATN1
Isn't she pretty? She carries all the right genes, passed SBA, improved paper levels, and is superior.

The Others

E2 2G Jagged Lighting
Jagged Lighting
E/e A/A -/Cr +/- -/f DP/- p/P W2/- SW1/- -/O
In my opinion this foal has too much white. This is mostly due to her carrying the frame gene. She also did not pass SBA so she will be sold at the end of the month.

E3 2G Potential Rain
Potential Rain
E/e A/a -/f p/P W2/- SW1/SW1
This little man is good in color, passed SBA, improved in paper but is not superior to Lighting. He will not be bred but I will keep him as a stud for others.

E2 2G Clear Rain
Clear Rain
E/E a/A +/- -/f -/DP p/P W2/- SW1/- -/PATN1
I love his color, He didn't pass SBA.

E3 2G Painting Lighting
Painting Lighting
E/e a/A Prl/- +/- DP/- p/P W2/W2
This guy didn't end up with splash, and didn't pass SBA

E3 2G Raining Dreams
Raining Dreams
E/e a/a Prl/- +/- p/p W2/W2
Didn't end up with splash and didn't pass SBA.

E3 2G Made In The Rain
Made In The Rain
E/e a/A -/Ch p/P W2/- SW1/SW1 -/PATN1
Ended up with both genes, just didn't pass SBA.

E3 2G Made U Rain
Made U Rain
E/E A/a Prl/- +/- -/f p/p W2/- SW1/SW1
SOOO much white right genes though. Didn't pass SBA.

E3 2G Lighting Note
Lighting Note
E/E A/a +/- -/f DP/- p/p W2/- SW1/-
Right genes, looks good. Didn't pass SBA.

E3 2G Increased Lighting
Increased Lighting
E/E a/a +/- -/f DP/- p/p W2/- -/PATN1
Didn't get splash. Didn't pass SBA.

E3 2G Magic Lighting
Magic Lighting
E/e a/a +/- DP/- p/p W2/R SW1/- -/PATN1
Got both genes and a bit of roan. Didn't pass SBA.

E3 2G Riding The Rain
E/E a/a +/- -/f DP/- p/P W2/W20 SW1/-
Didn't pass SBA.

E3 2G Royal Rain
E/e a/a +/- p/P W2/R -/H
Didn't pass SBA

E3 2G Running Thru Rain
E/E A/A +/- -/f p/p W2/W20 SW1/- -/PATN1
Didn't pass SBA

E3 2G Rebel Rain
Rebel Rain
E/e A/a +/- -/Sty -/f p/P W2/- SW1/-
Isn't he handsome. To bad he didn't pass SBA.

E3 2G Under The Rain
Under The Rain
E/E a/A -/DP p/p W2/W2 SW1/- -/PATN1
Another pretty gal that didn't pass SBA. Should've waited a bit for this pasture.

E3 2G Cost Of Rain
Cost Of Rain
E/e a/A Prl/- +/- -/Sty DP/- p/p W2/- SW1/SW1
To much white. SBA passing rate is going to be low this pasture.

E3 2G Walking In Rain
Passed SBA, Improved In Papers, but didnt get splash.

The other foals didn't pass SBA so I wont mind listing them all

Report
This pasture had a 8% SBA passing rate. Ouch. Should I have let them sit longer in pasture? Yes. This report also goes to show that pasture breeding is effective if the mares are in there for a good amount of time. Most of the mares were only in there for less than 10 days. The show pony auction will be a very big on this year. lol.

Viajoy · Mar 15, 2023 7:27 AM

First round of SOS foals in the auction. They're all in for 3 days at 2500. Check these guys out! When I add more foals I will update.

https://mesa.huntandjump.com/adv_search.php?owner=1615&owner_lm=like&barn=24797&barn_lm=like&runsearch=go

Viajoy · Mar 21, 2023 8:00 AM

Auto-Breeding Primary Pasture Report

Out of this auto breeding 4 foals did not survive out of 100. Easy math for a 4% mortality rate. Happier with this pasture, that is for sure. Out of the 96 lives foals I received, I put everyone through SBA before I could see any so I wouldn't hold any back because they were pretty. Remember, I'm breeding for color but also high breeding ability. If I need to cull, I have to to keep the lines in check. After SBA, 50 foals were spayed/gelded. 46 of them passed SBA, which leaves me with a 48% SBA passing rate. I would like to improve this number to ~80%

SBA Stallions
Out of the stallions I did not get a stallion with both W2 and Splash. I did receive 4 that retained just splash, all sired by Rising Star and 4 with just W2, all sired by Blood Money. Overall 15 stallions were not gelded. Below are the stallions that made the cut that will be staying to be revised.

E3 2G Paint The Stars
Paint The Stars
E/e A/a -/f p/p -/SW1
Only received one copy of splash. Improved in papers. Superior to sire. Both parents are exceptional producing splash.

E4 2G Epic Money
Epic Money
e/e A/a Sty/Sty f/f P/p W2/W2 PATN1/PATN1
Two copies of W2. No other white. Improved Papers. Superior to sire. Both parents are Fuel To The Fire.

E3 1G Beef Star
Beef Star
E/e a/A nd1/- -/Sty -/f P/P W20/- SW1/- PATN1/-
Best Of Pasture. One copy of splash. W20. Honorable mention, will not be keeping due to W20.

E3 2G Rising Blush
Rising Blush
E/e A/A nd1/- f/f P/p -/W20 -/LP PATN1/PATN1 + E/e A/a -/Prl -/f p/p SW1/- -/LP PATN1/PATN1
Honorable Mention. My first home bred chimera. Will be auctioning off!

SBA Mares
Out of 29 SBA passing mares I got 3 that had both W2 and Splash. 8 received just splash, all sired by Rising Star, and 9 with just W2, all sired by Blood Money. See a trend? Lol! Below are mares that have the genes I'm looking for and honorable mentions.

E1 2G Money In The Sky
Money In The Sky
e/E a/A Sty/- f/- P/p W2/-
Only contains one white gene, which is W2. Should be a good mare to keep back. Improved papers, Superior to dam.

E3 2G Bloodly Dance
Bloody Dance
e/E A/a Sty/- f/- P/P W2/W2 -/SW1 PATN1/-
This girl is perfect. Two copies of W2, one copy of splash. Superior, Improved papers, passed SBA. Just perfect. I do think when she ages up I'm going to pull some eggs from her to breed with a good stallion.

E3 2G Money Storm
Money Storm
e/E A/a Sty/- f/f P/p W2/R -/SW1 -/LP PATN1/- -/O
On the other hand, I am going to be keeping this gal. She has appy and frame but she does contain both genes I need. I will have to be careful who I breed her to, which will have to be a stallion with no Appy and no frame, to try and get rid of the other genes. Really the only reason I'm keeping her is because she is superior and improved in paper levels.

There are others but these are the main ones I'm going to be thinking about. Be on the lookout for a auction post!

Viajoy · Mar 23, 2023 6:16 AM

Auction Link: https://mesa.huntandjump.com/adv_search.php?runsearch=go&status3=1&jump=0&hpp=100&agel=2&color_lm=ex_like&owner=1615&barn=0&56=0&57=0&58=0&59=0&60=0&61=0

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