Paints & Pintos: Part Two

Breed Closeup

THE COLORFUL WORLD OF PAINTS & PINTOS
by Janet Piercy

Introduction For Part Two

s a Paint and Pinto connoisseur, I am often amused when reading the explanation of the different pinto spot patterns in most breed books. Unfortunately, drawings which sometimes accompany these descriptions are usually wrong and further confuse the issue. This article was written with the hope to bring better understanding about spotting patterns.

Photo Credit Sparticus, bay tobiano stallion customized from the Breyer Classic Man O' War by Chris Nandell and and owned by Laura Doll

Part Two: The Spot Patterns

Piebald and Skewbald

hese days, we know so much about different colors and spotting patterns that entire books have been written on the subject, but back when colors were first described for horses, a simple name was sufficient. In the case of pinto patterns, the first two names that worked well enough to hang around were piebald and skewbald. Piebald horses or ponies are black and white, while skewbald is any other color and white.

Unfortunately, the descriptions given for piebald and skewbald are so general and vague that it leads one to believe that a pinto can have spots anywhere and in any pattern. That's why I really wish we could wash those terms down the drain forever. Please don't think of pintos being piebald and skewbald! There are five much better, more accurate descriptions of spotting patterns called tobiano, frame overo, sabino, splash white and a pattern which is a mixture of frame overo and tobiano called tovero. (Frame overos are usually just called overos; sabino and splash white are both types of overo, though splash white doesn't really fit in as a true overo.

Photo Credits Top: This is a "piebald," otherwise known as a black tobiano (I could show a photo of a black frame overo, tovero, sabino or splash white and it would STILL be called a "piebald"!); this is a Carol Williams QH#1 Resin

Bottom: This is a "skewbald," otherwise known as a copper chestnut overo (I could show a photo of any color except black and any pattern and it would STILL be called a "skewbald"!); this is a Carol Williams QH#1 Resin shown as "Cody Allen," owned by Liz Roman

Tobiano

his is the most common pinto pattern and you've probably seen many of them. Nice Breyer tobiano representatives include Misty, Stormy, Project Universe/Pinto Saddlebred, LB Saddlebred, SR Saddlebred Weanling, Shetland Pony, and Wildfire from the Ruby & Wildfire SR (not distributed by Breyer). Tobiano is a dominent pattern, which means that breeding two tobianos will usually result in a spotted foal; there are some tobianos which are homozygous, which means all breedings from this horse will result in a spotted foal. Recently, a test was developed which will tell whether or not a particular tobiano horse is homozygous or not. This is exciting news for those people who want a guaranteed spotted foal!

There are several distinctive characteristics of a tobiano:

Tobianos almost always have a 'war shield' spot of color over the chest and shoulders plus a spot on each flank; occasionally only one flank spot is seen and very rarely, none.
All tobianos have four white legs. I've seen thousands of tobianos and I've never seen one with a solid leg. Eighty percent have white markings on all four legs up to the knees/hocks or higher. One leg with dark color extending down to the fetlock is uncommon (with three white legs up to the knees), and I've seen two legs ending with pasterns only once. (1 out of 3000+)
Tobianos usually but not always have facial markings like a solid horsestar, stripe, snip, etc. (Bonnet and apron faces may suggest the horse is actually a tovero.)
Most tobianos have mixed white and colored manes and tails or one of the two.
The spots usually have even, non-jagged edges. They're usually smoother looking than overo patterns but this isn't always the case.
Almost all tobianos have white extending over the backbone.

Photo Credit Bay tobiano mare customized from the Breyer Traditional Lady Phase by Laurie Jensen and owned by Renine Nicolaide of Germany

Overo

hese pintos are much less common than tobianos, and the reason lies in the nature of the spotting pattern. In the past, it was thought that the reason there are less overos than tobianos was because the overo gene was recessive. This means that breeding two overos together would not guarantee an overo foal. However, it is now thought that the overo pattern is actually dominent like tobiano. Why is it then, that tobianos outnumber overos? For the simple reason that minimally-marked tobianos are almost always still easily recognizable as a tobiano, while minimally-marked overos merely look like a solid horse! That's also why it will probably never be possible to have a homozygous overo that produces recognizably spotted overo foals every time.

Since overos are less common, they're usually everyone's favorite. Breyer has a few nice overos: the discontinued Yellow Mount and Overo Paint, SR Sam I Am (not distributed by Breyer), and the Paint American Mustang.

Overos also have their own set of distinctive characteristics:

Ninety-nine percent of all overos have solid color over the backbone from the withers to the tail bone, and out of all the overos I've seen, I've yet to see an overo with white over the back.
The majority of overos suffer from a wonderful case of the 'jaggies'! They have glorious lacy-edged spots that often have lots of tiny flecks of color or white nearby the edgings. Overos can have spots within spotsa big jagged white spot with a colored jagged spots within. Tobianos may get a little predictable after a while, but overos are always interesting!
Many overos look as if their white spots spread from the belly up to the back.
These horses are known for having wild facial markingsbonnet, apron and bald faces constitute a good ninety percent of all overosit's hard to find one with the normal star, strip or snip. Many overos also have 'beauty spots', which are little spots on the muzzle or lips. They're fun to look at and give the horses more personality.
Most overos have solid manes and tails. Occasionally an overo will have white in its mane where a spot crossed over the neck, but only rare individuals will have wild half and half manes like tobianos; my research has shown that most of these horses are actually toveros expressing their tobiano genes.
NOTE: I've only seen about five or ten overos with a few white hairs in their tails...a very rare sight indeed. Also, overos are very often a mixture of more than one type of overo pattern: frame, sabino, and splash white; all it takes is an experienced eye to recognize these patterns-within-patterns.
Most overos have at least one totally dark leg; many have no leg markings whatsoever. It's possible to find overos with have four stockings but they're very uncommon.

Photo Credit Big Time Leo, grulla overo stallion customized from the Breyer Traditional Adios by Chris Nandell

Tovero (TobianoOvero)

reeding a tobiano to an overo will result in a foal which often has a mixture of both patterns. The parent with more white will usually pass its pattern down, but this isn't always the case. Contrary to what one might think, breeding the two different patterns together doesn't insure getting a spotted foal. What you will get is a higher chance of getting a very unusually marked baby with characteristics of both types. Toveros are neat looking because they have such odd patterns. Breyer made one tovero, the discontinued San Domingo. This pattern is often called medicine hat and mistaken as tobiano; it's actually a tovero pattern.

It's often very difficult to spot a tovero because they usually display perfect tobiano or overo patterns. Most toveros are registered as either tobiano or overo even when they have characteristics of both patterns. However, there are some distinguishing characteristics that set toveros out from a crowd.

'Tobianos' with bonnet or apron faces (such as a medicine hat horse) or wild 'overo faces' are almost always toveros. Jagged, overo-like spots also distinguishing features of toveros.

'Overos' with excessive white in the mane are suspect. Excessive white on all four legs is also an indication. Overos with a tobiano-like pattern but no white over the backbone are usually toveros and smooth looking spots without jaggies are also a tell-tale sign.

Photo Credit D's Chasin' A Dream, grulla tovero stallion customized from the Breyer Traditional Adios by owner DeeAnn Kjelshus

Sabino

lthough the two pinto registries do not recognize this color pattern, a large number of overos are actually sabinos; furthermore, this usually roan-based pattern occurs frequently in many breeds from Tennessee Walking Horses to Shires.

Sabinos have characteristics very similar to overos, but are subtly different:

Like overos, sabinos have solid color over the backbone from the withers to the tail bone. Likewise, their pattern spreads from belly and legs upward, but can usually be recognized by roaning in most cases, which is its main factor. Crisp-edged spots are also seen though, and this makes understanding the difference between those sabinos and overos confusing. From my understanding, the crisp-edged sabinos are most common in Clydesdales.
Sabinos can show as little as only high whites to the extreme of nearly white with body flecking around the flanks, backbone, chest and ears. All-white foals not expressing the lethal white gene are sometimes born to sabino-sabino crosses. Limited Edition is a perfect example for an extreme (but not all-white) sabino.
Sabinos show the same facial markings as overos.
Sabinos usually have solid manes and tails, though the horses expressing stronger sabino traits often have white in their mane where roaning crossed over the neck; some sabinos have nearly white manes and tails, depending on how strongly the pattern is expressed.
Unlike overos, sabinos often have four white legs; many "overos" with four white legs are usually sabinos or sabino crosses.

Photo Credit Dun sabino Mustang mare customized from the Hagen-Renaker Mustang Mare by Thomas Bainbridge

Splash White

his is the rarest pattern of allin fact, most people are completely unaware of its existance. Splash whites are usually registered as overos for lack of knowing what else to call them, even though they're obviously neither overo nor tobiano. I was completely befuddled when introduced to this pattern because of its strangeness.

Splash whites are almost always crop outs and are most often from Quarter Horse breedingsexamples include Gambling Man, Chandler Bar and Spanish Duke. Amazingly, Welsh Ponies are also known to throw splash whites, the most famous being The Hot Spot. I've also seen one Paint splash white crop out resulting from an overo Paint/Quarter Horse breeding. Recently, a new web site went up which shows the remarkable Wild Horses of Abaco; amazingly, there are more splash whites in this small herd of horses than I've ever seen occupying the same area! After looking these horses over carefully, I've concluded that they're totally wierd looking! However, the pattern has its own rules which make these neat horses easy to recognize.

Virtually all splash whites have blue or silver eyes, or one of each.
The color looks as if it was poured on from above, dribbling down the sides.
Almost all have white legs from the knees/hocks down, and sometimes have no color on the legs whatsoever.
The top of the neck as well as the ears are almost always colored, but the eyes are only rarely surrounded by color.
The spots are always smooth with clearly defined edges like tobianosnever jagged like overos.

Photo Credit Armstrong's Gamblin' Man, black splash white Paint stallion customized from the Breyer Stablemate Seabiscuit by Janet Piercy and owned by Ruhamah Hunter; portrait horse of the Paint stallion, Gamblin' Man.

The Big Pinto Problem

ry as they might, Paint and Pinto breeders have never been able to 'fix' all pinto patterns there's no guarantee that a pinto breeding will result in a spotted foal unless one of the horses is a homozygous tobiano. This problem is not isolated just to pintos, but plagues all 'color breeds' including Appaloosas*, Palominos, Buckskins and Albinos. *There are homozygous leopards.

It must be very frustrating to breed two beautifully spotted horses and produce a solid foal. I don't have a Paint mare yet but I've done a lot of genetics breeding with spotted mice and guinea pigs. I too, have tried to fix the color but it doesn't always work. I once had a rare four-colored guinea pig female whose color I tried to fix, but out of about twenty babies, four breedings, and three different males, she only had one quadri-colored baby! I can't tell you how frustrating and disappointing that was for me. I feel a lot of sympathy for all the money owners dish out for breeding and maintenance, just to get a solid colored 'dud'.

Photo Credit Maid of Crystal and her lovely foal; all Paint horse breeders hope that their mares will throw loud babies like this one, but unfortunately, not every breeding results in such a beautiful baby.

The Myths About Pinto Patterns

here are so many incorrect rumors about pinto color patterns that it gets a bit disturbing. Allow me to clear up the rumors that I hear floating around the hobby.

"Blue and silver eyes only occur on overos."

Contrary to many individual opinions, blue and silver eyes occur on horses of all patterns. All splash whites have blue or silver eyes; overos and toveros often have them because the hair color around their eyes is frequently white and this influences eye color; many tobianos also have one or two blue or silver eyes.

"Tobianos have white bodies with colored spots, overos have colored bodies with white spots."

WRONG! This is a falsity if I ever heard one! All patterns range the full spectrum from being almost all white to being almost completely dark.

Interestingly, when it comes to the almost no white extremity, tobianos are still obviously pintos even with one spot of whiteas it's usually around the the tail which is usually mixed white and the body color. However, overos with just a bit of white look like Quarter Horses or Thoroughbreds with a stray white marking. Add a saddle and so much for knowing what breed it is!

"Spots can be randomly placed."

ABSOLUTELY NOT! It pains me to see the horrendously spotted models that Breyer has offered in the past and present as so-called pintosyou'd never see a horse that looks like most of them! This includes Running Mare in "overo," all the old spotted Stock Horses, the Classic Mustang Mare, Our First Pony mare and spotted Classic Mustang foal, the old Littlebit Paint, Spanish Barb, and most of the other discontinued pintos from Breyer. With all these unrealistic pintos, it's no wonder that I've seen so many strange customized pintos, even from some very well-known artists.

Photo Credit Desert Flower, Breyer Classic Mustang Mare in chestnut "tobiano" owned by Teresa Fedak

"Pintos usually have 'mapping'."

WRONG. A good number do, but most do not. Tobianos have mapping much more often than other patterns, but most don't have mapping.

For those of you who don't know, 'mapping' is the soft tracings around spots commonly seen on customized pintos...it looks very nice on many pintos and gives them an extra touch of elegance.

The 'mapped' effect in horses occurs at the edges of spots where the white hair lays over the dark skin of the colored spots. Since white hair is more translucent than dark hair, you can sometimes see where the dark skin begins around the spots. Seen through the white hair, the dark skin appears grey or a lighter shade than the colored hair, and give the spot a soft, 'mapped' color. Mapping is always very narrow in real lifeonly about as wide as an inch, which calculates to be only about an eighth of an inch on a Traditional, realistically speaking.

Photo Credits Top: Close-up of a bay tobiano stallion customized from the Breyer Traditional Morganglanz by Chris Nandell; click on the picture to see the whole horse

Bottom: Close-up of Jetarebel, chestnut overo stallion customized from the Breyer Traditional Trakehner by Chris Nandell; click on the picture to see the whole horse

Any Questions?

I hope this two-part article has answered questions and given much-sought information about these beautiful parti-colored horses. If you have any other questions, please feel free to email me, Janet Piercy by clicking on my highlighted name.

Back to Paints & Pintos: Part 1