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BLUE EYES, Frame & Splash - Clarify something for me please.

OK, help me out here. I have just been read an article written by a breeder here who says that splash (apart from cream DD) is the only cause of blue eyes. Now, from the years I have been hanging round the old forum, I thought I had learnt that frame can also cause blue eyes. Out of interest, how do we actually know which gene is causing blue eyes & which is not, given that so many horses have multiple patterns??? The article also says that all homozygous splash horses have blue eyes. I am not sure how we would know if a horse was homozygous, considering we don't have a test. There is no specific research or sources quoted.

Maigray Thu, 05/14/2009 - 21:44

[quote]Frame, other than this loose association with blue eyes, isn't known to effect "inner pigment"?[/quote]

I think it does, in its own way, because it interferes with the migration of stem cells that allow for pigmentation of the body and formation of the large intestine. An OWLS foal always has blue eyes. A heterozygote foal shows varying levels of penetrance, meaning different levels of the effect of the mutation. If the pigment to the eye is affected, then blue eyes appear. It explains why the effect is random.

accphotography Thu, 05/14/2009 - 21:54

Well one could argue that it doesn't/couldn't except in the case of homozygotes.

Maigray are you SURE all lethal white foals have blue eyes? I could have sworn I've had at least two people tell me their foals had brown eyes (and were confirmed lethal foals too). Maybe I misunderstood.

Maigray Thu, 05/14/2009 - 22:15

I wouldn't bet my life on it every time, but it's a noted trait in OWLS foals. There can be slight amounts of pigmentation, so it's possible, but it would be random. I'm sure an expert on embryonic development would be able to better quantify it, because the migration of the neural crest cells happen in predicatable patterns. Heterozygotes can also show effects in the large intestine, as well as in their varying degrees of depigmentation.

lipigirl Fri, 05/15/2009 - 02:55

I understand the idea that you don't get blue eyes with frame but with splash but when you bet a minimal Frame where the whole body is dark and the horse has 2 vivid blue eyes and tests positive fo Frame then that says something to me. If I can find an example of this I'll post it.

Great discussion BTW !

rabbitsfizz Fri, 05/15/2009 - 10:49

Yes but the problem with that is that the horse could very easily be minimal Splash as well....Fred sired the black mare with blue eyes, now, if she had been bred to a horse with minimal Frame, you could easily have got a foal with blue eyes caused by Splash, and a white blaze caused by Frame...I am only playing devils advocate here, I actually do think Frame carries blue eyes.
I also think that people writing papers should try to include some sort of fact, or present their paper as the [i]opinion[/i]which is often valid, and often correct, but not cast in stone.
Jeannette Gower takes some good pictures....that is about as much as you can say really!!
I wish I had the money she earned for writing what has to be the most inaccurate, but well written book on colour of the century!!!

Thorwood, I would love the pictures of the spotted Welsh...but be assured there are none accepted by the UK Stud Book...they will not even accept broken coloured in the main book, they have made a separate registry for them!!!
I have seen a couple of very nice part bred Welsh that had spots, but the genetics do not exist to create spots in Welsh, nor Shetlands, so it could not happen spontaneously, and even if it did they would not be accepted for registration.

RiddleMeThis Fri, 05/15/2009 - 12:36

[quote="lipigirl"]I understand the idea that you don't get blue eyes with frame but with splash but when you bet a minimal Frame where the whole body is dark and the horse has 2 vivid blue eyes and tests positive fo Frame then that says something to me.![/quote]
The probably with that is that splash can be minimal as well and just have blue eyes.

Take these two minis for example. One is LWO On and one is nn.

[img]http://www.dreammakerminis.com/pictures…]
[img]http://www.dreammakerminis.com/pictures…]

Andrea Wed, 05/27/2009 - 11:44

[quote="rabbitsfizz"]
but the genetics do not exist to create spots in Welsh, nor Shetlands, so it could not happen spontaneously, and even if it did they would not be accepted for registration.[/quote]

Please clarify... Is splash not considered a gene for spotting? I understand they don't approve of them, but that doesn't mean they don't exist?
Also, I thought spotted Shetlands were common?