Base Coats
Base coats are the primary bases that can be modified by other color genes present on the phae genome.
Black – Ee or EE/aa
Carrier: n/a
A coat that is dark brown at lightest, or pitch black at darkest. Minor hue shifts in lighter or darker colors can occur to add depth to a black coat.
Bay – Ee or Ee/Aa or AA or AAt
Carrier: n/a
A reddish coat with dark brown to black points on the face and legs with a dark brown to black mane and tail.
Wild Bay – Ee or EE/A+a or A+A+ or A+A or A+At
Carrier: n/a
A tan to reddish brown coat with a dark brown to black mane and tail and restricted darkening of the points concentrated around the knees and fetlocks.
Seal Bay – Ee or Ee/Ata or AtAt
Carrier: ata
A dark brown, sometimes almost black coat, with light brown to gold or chestnut hues on the underline of the body. It can also be expressed minimally on the belly and throat areas.
Chestnut – ee/aa or Aa or AA or A+a or A+A+ or A+A or A+At or Ata or AtAt
Carrier: n/a
A variety of colors, chestnuts can range from cherry red, to golden, to dark liver brown. Coats are uniform without any darker points.
Modifier Genes
Coat modifiers alter the appearance of the base coat. Many modifiers can be added onto one base to create a combined effect.
Flaxen – ff
Carrier: nf (no expression)
Flaxen is visible only on chestnut (ee) bases. It lightens the mane to a red, gold, or white color that is noticeably paler than the body. Flaxen may result in a gradient of the mane and tail.
Pangare – nPg or PgPg
Carrier: on black based coats only.
Pangare creates paler hairs that are prominent mostly around the undercarriage, muzzle, and fetlocks. It does not display on black-based coats
Roan – nRn or RnRn
Carrier: none
Roan creates pale hairs across the majority of the body, but it leaves the points the original coat color.
Winter Roan – nRnW or RnWRnW or RnRnW
Carrier: none
Winter roan creates pale hairs across the majority of the body, leaving the points the original coat color in the summer. In the winter, the roan extends to the vast majority of the body, leaving only small portions of the points the original coat color. Expressions can be extreme or minimal, but the roaning is always visibly more drastic in the winter.
Silver – nZ or ZZ
Carrier: only on chestnut based coats
Silver is visible only on black or bay bases (E required), where it lightens the mane to a silver/grey or white. It may result in a gradient and may or may not also affect the coat to lighten it to a chocolatey brown or create desaturation near the muzzle and hooves.
Sooty – nSty or StySty
Carrier: none
Sooty creates dark-to-black clouding or dappling on the body, most commonly descending from the top line, but can also originate from the points.
Wolf Sooty – nStyW or StyWStyW or StyStyW
Carrier: none
Wolf sooty creates dark-to-black streaks along the topline that frequently resemble wolfish ticking, hence the name. It generally affects the same area as regular sooty.
Dun – nD or DD
Carrier: none
Dun creates a brassy tone or brown tone over the base coat and frequently creates stripes around the knees, dorsal stripes down the back, sometimes with faint stripes on the shoulder, and sometimes even faint ‘lacing’ on the forehead and tail.
Extended Dun – nDx or DxDx or DDx
Carrier: none
A mutation of dun, extended dun stripes extend past simple shoulder and leg barring. It causes thick or thin stripes, covering areas from upper legs, face/neck, to full body coverage. These stripes are frequently zebra-like or tiger-like in appearance, but are up to creative interpretation.
Grey – nG or GG
Carrier: none
A phae with a grey coat grows pale with age. It may result in fleabites or dappling. The expression of grey changes throughout a phae’s life, and eventually turns them completely white.
Restricted Grey – nGR or GRGR or GGR
Carrier: none
A mutation of the normal grey, restricted grey causes the grey to be restricted to certain areas of the body, with some subtle swooping patterns, fleabites, and dappling.
Single Cream – nCr
Carrier: none
Single cream Lightens the coat of bay, seal bay, wild bay, and chestnut based phaea to a yellowy cream color. Black based phaea have a slightly more chocolatey brown coat color.
Double Cream – CrCr
Carrier: none
Double cream significantly lightens all coat colors to pale, milky-white to soft tan, depending on their base genetics. Sometimes, it can be as pale as almost white, but should have some visual distinction from white.
Champagne – nCh or ChCh or ChchL
Carrier: none
Champagne dilutes the base coat to a brassy gold or yellow version, similar to the cream dilution. Both body and mane are affected, with black-based coats becoming a lighter grey brown, and chestnut and bay based coats becoming yellowy, with bay based manes becoming reddish, and chestnut manes becoming pale or white.
Lilac – chLchL
Carrier: nchL (no expression) or ChchL (expressed as regular champagne)
Lilac lightens and desaturates the base coat, turning into a steel blue/lilac shade. Lilac also affects the eyes, so a red (ee) or black base (Ee or EE) would have dark purple eyes. On a double cream base (CrCr), the eyes are a pale lilac color.
Pearl – prlprl
Carrier: nprl
Pearl dilutes the base coat to a lighter, more brassy coat color, similar to champagne, but slightly more desaturated. Coats often have a pearly sheen to them, lending to the gene name!
Pseudo Double Cream – Crprl
Carrier: none
Pseudo double cream significantly lightens the base coat, sometimes to near-white, and closely mimics double-cream dilutions. Pseudo double creams can be told apart by eye and hoof color, as they are not truly blue or pink, respectively.
Melanism – nM or MM
Carrier: On black only
Melanism causes the coat to appear darker than usual. Works on all coats but may not be so obvious on already dark coats like blacks and dark bays.
Leucism – ll
Carrier: nl (no expression)
Leucism causes the coat to appear lighter than usual and also affects the mane and tail. It lightens the entire body without changing the saturation of the coat.
Suppression – nS or SS
Carrier: on phae without genes to suppress only
Suppression determines how much a single dilution gene will affect the base coat. Suppression works on champagne (Ch), lilac (chL), cream (Cr), pearl (prl), silver (Z), and dun (D).
Mushroom – mumu
Carrier: nmu (no expression)
Mushroom interacts with the agouti gene, causing the coat to become a desaturated brown coloring. It does not affect pure black coats.
Taffy – nT or TT
Carrier: none
Taffy is a gene that causes the skin to become a pale, peachy color and can dilute the underline and lower legs similarly to pangare. Taffy is displayed alongside all other genes, but may not be obvious on light bases like double creams, champagne, pearl or pseudo creams, as each of those genes already creates pale skin. Taffy makes the eyes gold and hooves a dark peach unless double cream, champagne, lilac, pearl or pseudo cream genes are present. In this case, the eyes turn silver but the hooves experience no change.