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Without seeing their original phenotype, I can’t say for sure but I strongly suspect (98% sure) that based on their age, genetics, and that their pictures got refreshed with adding new items, you are seeing LP at play here :)

LP progressively “varnishes” a horse out as they age up which makes it look like they are graying. It’s a separate gene however from gray and it’s often characterized by pigment/color still left on the bony parts of the horse (nasal bridge, knees, hocks, etc). The varnishing doesn’t happen at the same rate/progression for every horse so some will varnish quickly and some will still have a lot of color left as they age up.

Edit: hit done too early oops!

It’s neat because it’s like getting a new horse every season!

Hopefully this was helpful! You can use the search engine to look at horses with LP at different ages to get an rough idea of what your horse will look like at different points :) some people (can’t recall if they are here in this server or the others) like to play with Appaloosa genetics and breed horses that varnish out very slowly so they retain their markings/colors longer. I don’t play much with Appaloosa genetics myself so am not entirely familiar with that aspect of what to breed for.

Again, hopefully this is helpful and good luck with your horses! They are beautiful!

Oh, ok. Thank you both. I was a bit confused because I haven't seen this before with the LP's, and I do have accounts on the other servers with LP and no varnishing like this. I'm guessing I need the varnish regulator gene to moderate the progression rate, or something?

Anyway, my surprise can maybe be explained by the fact that Darkness There was the first one I tried to tattoo, and she was very, very black with no varnishing before the image regeneration. I had a bit of a shock and was worried that I had done something wrong.
Again, thank you for your help.

The tattoo makes the image refresh, so for whatever reason they hadn't refreshed recently until you put the tattoo on. If you search older appies you will see most are completely white by the time they age out. The Evergreen rank special is the only foundation horse I know of that has the varnish regulator which slows it down; I have seen varnish regulator in the gene mod lab but I haven't tried it out