HGG Community Forums

Those white flecks you are seeing are due to Varnsih - hidden gene in the game. They get lighter and more prevalent as the horse ages. Varnish out to nearly all white.

Evergreen Boughs are the herdhelper that is a guarantee to not have Varnish, otherwise, its a gamble. I believe there are some players that breed for non varnish appies.

Snowflake is a heavy varnish variant tha is now testable.

Then there is a halo gene that affects spots as they varnish. I don't know enough about them. I don't breed appies but GMT them occasionally.

So to get the large blanket, I should breed for one LP, and one or two PATN, correct? And avoid snowflake.

Is Halo the varnish regulator 2?

For the horses I posted first, (the one LP no PATN), do those not have spots because of luck of the draw, or something else?

If you want spotted blankets, then 1 Patn is enough. 2 copies of PATN1 get you leopards and near leopards.

And then to get more complicated there is a hidden PATN2 in the game. It is not testable but you will see the horses that carry it. They are often the leopards or near leopards that have only 1 PATN or no PATN. i don't have an example in my barns to show you.

Do all Appies turn white with age? How can we tell? I have an appy with a rear blanket that I think looks pretty snazzy:

Dot Dude

I just don't think it's worth breeding if dots fade to white after a while.

And could PATN2 be what causes that messier, sort of smeared edge to the blanket? Because I've noticed that on appies before too and thought that it was just chance variation in phenotype, but looking at these potential PATN2 carriers, I notice all of them have that and very few of my PATN1 carriers do.

I know one thing.... Usually when I GMT a PATN1 onto a horse, it will create a +>>PATN1 somatic tattoo, but yesterday I GMTd PATN1, and it left a PATN2>>PATN1 tattoo. I found that interesting. I guess I should have just left it be.

@SabreBaby, That's interesting. It reminded me that when DP was untestable, people used to use the gene sales as a cheat to check if a horse had DP, because it would show there whether the horse already had DP or not. So just now I went to the gmt lab to see if PATN2 would show as an option to edit, and on one of my horses that I suspect has it, I see three options under appaloosa blanket size:

- costs 1 token
PATN1 costs 1 token
- costs 1 token

On one of my other horses that clearly has no blanket at all, it just has two options:

- costs 1 token
PATN1 costs 1 token

The extra - allele on the first horse must be the hidden PATN2, maybe?

PATN1 controls LP (appy gene) 1 copy of PATN1 with LP makes a horse have a blanket with additional spots on the blanket. Hom PATN1 and Hom LP makes a horse just have spots.