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Blacklightning0581 · Apr 8, 2020 2:47 PM

Please help me understand, or maybe i already understand correctly?

Varnish. Its when there are small spots on the horse or a slightly faded color, right? And not varnished looks like a normal solid or paint with appy markings? I understand that snowflake is a version of varnish with larger spots?

Am i right?

Been wonderin about that for a while and hopin i got it right. It seems to be more common than not.

Does varnish show up on anything but perhaps a solid appy?

bluchrystals · Apr 8, 2020 4:00 PM

Sounds like you've got a pretty good handle on it. Varnish/snowflake can be carried by any horse, but the gene isn't turned on unless the horse also carrys the appy gene. The genes can be passed down to any foals with the same percentages as any other gene.

SandyCreekAcres · Apr 8, 2020 4:47 PM

I'd like to add that just as any horse can carry PATN1, which only affects appaloosas, so any horse can carry snowflake and an appaloosa carrying snowflake might be bred to a non-appaloosa horse hiding that gene resulting in a homozygous snowflake appy, depending on the whim of the goddess Arengee (Random Number Generator).

annismyrph · Apr 8, 2020 4:55 PM

here is a snowflake I got completely on accident ; if you look at her parents ; papa had the LP and momma had the PATN1 tho momma shows as a NON App Bay ; grand sire on both sides is the same, which might be how the snowflake showed up ?

LG Cobbles

LakeOndowaFarm · Apr 8, 2020 5:42 PM

Both regular varnish and snowflake are progressive and appaloosas with either will get more and more white as they age until they are nearly all white, although the spots sometimes resist varnishing. Here are a couple of my older snowflakes as examples. Both would have originally had fairly small blankets.

Samirkan 4

Ralshonev 2

Blacklightning0581 · Apr 10, 2020 4:25 PM

@annismyrph - my solid stallion osnt an appy but hes het snowflake. Only discovered thru rgs lol

SapphireFarm · Apr 10, 2020 4:40 PM

Question to add on how can I breed appys with varnish? A lot of them don’t have the small body spots but I really want dark spots over their blanket I think it looks really pretty

ChateauAlbere · Apr 13, 2020 1:18 PM

@SapphireFarm Can you share an example of a horse that you like? We can help narrow down some of the genetics for you.

As for breeding for varnish, I breed against varnish. The only way to really select for/against varnish is to buy young horses and refresh their pictures every month to see how the varnish progresses. Or you can buy older horses that appear to already have a lot of varnish. Ammit has asked in the past to not abuse the RGS feature to look for hidden genes, so breeding for and against varnish requires a lot of patience.

But there are some clues in genetics. Because you do want varnish, you should avoid horses with the Evergreen Boughs tattoo, which are guaranteed to be non-varnishing. Any that has a snowflake parent or a snowflake offspring, even if it isn't snowflake itself has at least one varnishing gene (Snowflake being a type of varnish).

Blacklightning0581 · Apr 16, 2020 5:38 PM

The rgs was a complete accident. I was lookin to add something else and when i had passed by snowflake, i noticed his dam's side wasnt applicable but his sire's was. Considering hes a solid silver bay, i didnt even know he could carry the gene. I dont like the look of the roaning color, so i figure if its an appy that looks like roan, its likely varnish

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