Missouri Fox Trotters

So what does the dun gene do? It is a dilute gene that changes the coat color characteristics in equines. Some schools of
thought now think it could be a modifying gene instead, but either way, it is a gene that affects the coloring. It is
sometimes called a primitive gene because it is believed to have been around as long as horses have been around. It is
found with more frequency in some breeds than others. It is very prevalent in the Fjord, Mustang, and Quarter Horse
breeds - but very rare to non-existent in the TB and gaited horse breeds. The gene can manifest itself on all coat colors
and often appears with other modifying and dilute genes. It generally dilutes the body color, but leaves the points a darker
shade of the same color. It is also responsible for the primitive markings, often called dun factor markings, you find on dun
gene horses. It is a dominant gene, which means one parent must have the gene to pass it down to the offspring. It
doesn't "hide" under some coat colors like agouti or silver dapple only to pop up generations down the line. So if you see a
pedigree with several dun horses farther back, but the sire and dam are not dun, then neither is the horse in question.
Scroll down for much more information on the dun gene and examples of the dun factor markings. I have also included
information on breeding for the grulla color as that is generally the most popular color of dun.

The first, and most notable marking is the dorsal stripe. This is a darker line that runs the entire length of the back of a
horse and continues on into the tail hairs. It can be a wide or narrow line and it might be wider at the hip area than it was
at the wither area. It might be intersected by other dark lines (generally called barbs or transverse striping.) It should be
unbroken unless the horse is spotted, and it is defined and apparent all year. The dorsal stripe is the color of the horse's
points. The dorsal stripe is ALWAYS present if the dun gene is present. There are several other characteristics as well, but
these may or may not be evident on a horse that has the dun gene. Generally there will be at least some, and perhaps all,
of the following markings on a dun gene horse.

A. Cobwebbing - This is an interesting pattern that appears on the horse's forehead area. It is a circular pattern of darker
hairs that resemble's the shape of a spider's web.

B. Face Mask - This marking can range from a little bit of color to completely covering the face in the darker point color of
the horse.

C. Transverse Striping - These markings run perpendicular to the dorsal stripe on the horse's back and are sometimes
called barbs.

D. Shoulder Bars - These patches of darker color are found around the shoulder and neck area of the horse. Some will
have very dark markings and could have two or more patches of color on each side.

E. Mottling - This is one of my favorite markings and it is generally found at the top of the leg points. You will see random
spots of color above the horse's stockings on his back and/or front legs.

F. Leg Bars - These are the stripes you see on the back and front legs of a horse around the knee area. Sometimes they
are called zebra stripes and they cross the legs from side to side.

G. Ear Tipping - This marking is just a darker tipping on the horse's ears. You will also sometimes see that the ears are
lined with the point color of the horse.

H. Frosting - You will sometimes find frosting at the top of the tail and in the mane of a horse carrying the dun gene.

As I stated earlier, the gene is present on all the different coat colors and patterns and there is a name for each color
occurrence. A chestnut/sorrel horse with the dun gene is called a red dun. A bay horse with the dun gene is called a dun
or a bay dun. A black horse with the dun gene is called a grullo or grulla (pronounced grew-yo or grew-yah.) If the gene is
present with other modifies, then the color would be called that name with dun (ie. palomino dun or dunalino, spotted dun,
gold champagne dun, roan dun, etc.) The dun gene patterns are fairly consistent and once you become familiar with
seeing them, you can usually spot them quickly.

As of January, 2008, UC Davis does have a zygosity test for the dun gene available to the public. They have not
identified the actual dun marker yet, so you have to send not only hair samples for the horse in question, but
also samples from at least one parent to help insure test accuracy. You can read more on the UC Davis website.

Dorsal

So where does all the confusion come into play? Usually the markings are very apparent and it is easy to spot a dun gene
horse (as in the pictures above.) But that is not always the case. A dun gene horse must have a dorsal stripe. Also, some
of the above characteristics should be visible, but they are not always so easy to see. It becomes confusing when you
have a smutty coat or countershading in a foal coat. Often, the smutty coat will appear to have a dorsal stripe along the
back of the horse. This false dorsal does not, however, run into the tail hairs. It is usually visible during the winter months,
but not in the summer. And, it is usually not defined like a true dorsal is. The darker coloring seems to fade away into the
horse's coat. Also, a false dorsal occurs when a foal is shedding his foal coat. Sometimes a false dorsal stripe is very
convincing, even to someone familiar with the gene and its markings. Because of this, it is important to find some of the
other markings on the horse you suspect is a dun gene horse. And to complicate matters even more, some foals are born
with countershading that mimmicks the dun gene markings on the back and on the legs. But these markings will fade as the
foal matures. Red duns are one of the harder colors to confirm because you can see the dorsal, but quite often you cannot
see any leg bars. Look for darker leg points on a red horse. Also, they usually will have shoulder bars, even if they are light
in color. I have seen red dun horses with very obvious leg bars, however, I have seen more with no visible leg barring at all.
But all the ones I have seen do have neck bars to go along with the dorsals. When there is a question, look to the dam and
sire. If one of these is an obvious dun, then there is a possibility this horse is a dun. If neither the dam nor sire were duns,
then it isn't possible that this horse is a dun.

Are any of these foals dun? The answer is no. All but the last picture come from at least one dun parent and the foal
rearing also had very distinct bar coloring on his legs. But they all lost their markings by around 4 months of age. Now you
can see why sometimes if is difficult to tell if a foal has the dun gene or not.

In the AQHA where the dun gene is readily found, the most rare color is the grulla, or black dun. Out of over 155,000 horses
registered with AQHA in 2002, just over 1200 (or 8%) were grullo. There were a total of just under 11,000 dun gene horses
registered that year.* The number of grulla horses is on the rise because breeders are now breeding specifically for that
color, but it is still a difficult color to produce. Our breeding experience is with AQHA horses and breeding for the grullo
coloring. The best chance to produce a grullo is to breed grullo to grulla. Unfortunately, we do not have that luxury in the
foxtrotting breed because until now, there were no attempts to find two lines to breed together. All of the known dun
breeding has been dun to non-dun. When breeding this way, there is only a 50% chance of getting a dun of any color, let
alone the black based dun. So the numbers are increasing very slowly. We intend to eventually breed dun to dun, which will
give us an approximately 75% chance of getting a dun gene offspring, which are much better odds. And the homozygous
foals we put on the ground will eventually throw dun gene foals 100% of the time, even when bred to non-dun gene horses.
We intend to keep all of our breeding quality fillies to breed to Cutter.

The dun gene is not common in the gaited horse world. Until recently, many believed it was not present at all. We began
our search for dun gene foxtrotters in 2002. We found a few owners who thought they had dun foxtrotters, but upon
inspection, we found those to be smutty instead of dun. We had all but given up when we found the Gem Lady Dawn line,
and Future. It was somewhat difficult at the time to convince the foxtrotter world that this line really was a dun gene line,
but people now understand the gene now and accept that the dun gene does exist in the breed. In recent months, 2
different lines have been found in the Missouri Fox Trotting breed that carry the dun gene, and more than likely there are
others. We do know of a line that goes back to a 3 G's mare, and a line that goes back to a Gem Lady Dawn mare that both
carry the gene. The 3 G's line is located in the MO/AR area and the Gem Lady Dawn line is in the OH area. And of course
there is are representatives from each line located in TN at our farm. The numbers are now creeping up because there is
finally a standing stallion in the AR area and several dun gene foals have hit the ground in the past 2 years. We expect the
trend will follow those in the other registries and the demand for these horses will only increase due to the beauty of the
markings. We have researched the two dun lines and found that they are completely unrelated as far back as records can
be traced. In our breed, that is unusual no matter what the color because the gene pool is relatively small. The dun gene
does have a homozygous form, but it is very unlikely that there are any homozygous dun Missouri Fox Trotters at this time
as we have not found any crossing of the two lines mentioned above. To have a homozygous dun, both sire and dam must
be dun and both must pass the dun gene down to the offspring. It is the responsibility of all breeders to improve the breed
with higher quality foals than the sire or dam alone. We hope the foals we put on the ground will be the beginning - not the
end - of quality dun gene breeding of Missouri Foxtrotting horses. There are many breeders in the other breed registries
experimenting now with combinations of the dun gene and other dilute and modifying genes. Many of these are breeding for
a particular color of dun - the grullo roan for example. There is some opposition to this, however, as some believe mixing all
of these genes will eventually breed the true dun out of existence. But it seems like a logical path for color breeders to take
as we are always trying to find a nitch and something unique that will set us apart from the rest. Eventually, there will be
enough dun breeders in the foxtrotting breed to also tempt breeders to combine genes and breed for uniqueness. Still - it all
goes back to the horse. There must be a quality horse under that beautiful color or we are all wasting our time.

If you have any questions about the dun gene, please feel free to ask. I have several articles and have located many sites
that help clarify this information that I would be happy to pass along to those who are interested. The information posted
here if very basic and useful to those with a casual interest in the gene and those who are not familiar with it at all. I've
tried to put the information in layman's terms, rather than the technical wordings found in other articles. Genetics can be
confusing due to the language used - which is more confusing, at times, than the actual concept. Also, please contact me
if you know of another line of duns in our breed. We are trying to build a data base of dun gene foxtrotting horses and any
information would be appreciated. If you are interested in becoming a dun gene breeder, we would be happy to share any
information you need. As I said before, you must have at least one dun parent when breeding for dun foals. Your chances
of getting a dun foal are 50% when breeding dun to non-dun. Below you will find different sceneries to follow depending on
the color dun foal you hope to get.

Red Dun - A red dun is beautiful and can range from an almost pink cast to his coat to an almost chestnut color. He can
have an almost flaxen mane and tail to a mane and tail that look almost black. His points can be very light and almost
invisible to very very dark red (again looking almost black.) Every chestnut or sorrel horse out there is e/e. All you need to
do is add the dun gene and you are there. This is by far the most simple dun color to get, especially since we have so many
red based horses in our breed. If the base color of a mare and the base color of the dun could make a sorrel foal, then you
can get a red dun from that same breeding.

Palomino Dun - Some people call this a dunalino, but the genetics are the same. He is basically a palomino horse with the
dun gene - two red genes, one creme gene and one dun gene. A palomino dun has a lighter body coat color than your
average palomino coloring and the tail has silver/grey/red hairs running through it as a result of the dorsal stripe running
into the tail hairs. He should have darker points and you should be able to see leg bars. Of course he will have a dorsal
stripe too. Quite often these markings are easy to miss, especially in the foals, and they are often misregistered as
palominos. Tira's sire - Playboy's Country Boy - is a palomino dun. We are hoping for a palomino dun or two from breeding
Dusty to our palomino mare, Hickory. They both carry the red gene, Dusty has the dun and Hickory has the creme. Of
course we could get a red dun out of these two as well.

Dun or Bay Dun - Now we are getting a little more complicated. A bay dun is either an E/e or E/E with an agouti gene and a
dun gene. So this horse is black based. The coat color is usually a golden or a light brown, but can run the full gambit of
shades for a bay horse (muted.) The points are black or dark brown. We do not have the genetic material to make a bay
dun on our farm unless we have a hidden agouti gene in any of our red based horses. We do like this color, however, and
would like to breed for it in the future.

Buckskin Dun - Genetically this one is even more complicated. You have to have an E/e or E/E horse with agouti, creme,
and a dun gene. A buckskin dun generally looks like a buckskin with a shade lighter body color and he has the dun factor
markings. A buckskin dun is often confused with a sooty buckskin and most of the times when someone thinks he has a dun
and does not, it is either a buckskin or a bay. This is generally because the horse is also sooty and the sooty markings can
mimic the dun markings very well.

Grulla or Grullo - This is my favorite dun color and it is sometimes called Black Dun. It isn't genetically complicated - just an
E/e or E/E horse with a dun gene. But for some reason it is rare and hard to get. The terms are used interchangeably, but
the "o" ending is generally used for a colt and the "a" ending is used for a filly. This color changes in intensity depending on
the time of the year, but looks a lot like a roan from a distance. Up close you can see that there is not a mix of white and
black hairs, but all the hairs are one color. The points stay dark and the body color ranges from a silver to a very dark,
almost black, color. You will often see grulla coats with a brown cast to them in the winter.

Others - You can also have spotted duns, champagne duns, roan duns, etc. The gene can be present with any other dilute
gene or modifier. You can find cremello or perlino duns as well. In some of the other registries, the trend now is to mix the
dun gene with these other modifying genes to see just what fancy colors they can get. I saw a beautiful roan grullo stallion
not long ago and he looked like a shiny silver medallion. I would like to see some champagne duns in the future because I
think that gleaming color would be accentuated by the dun markings. But for now we are content with just helping to bring
the numbers up with the standard dun colors and only adding the creme gene from time to time. We will leave the more
exotic colors up to the next band of breeders of this beautiful color in our breed.

Breeding for the Grulla coloring:

The best and easiest way to get your grulla is to buy one already on the ground if you can find one. It is by far the
quickest way and may turn out to be the least expensive way as well if you have to pay to AI to a dun stallion several
times trying to get the elusive grulla coloring out of your mare. But if you can't wait or can't find one already on the ground,
your best bet is to breed grulla to grullo. You will have around a 70% chance of getting a grulla foal. I know in our breed
that is next to impossible. So the next best thing is to breed a HZ black mare to a dun stallion of any color. The mare will
always throw the black and all you need to do is wait for the stallion to throw his dun gene for you and you will have your
grulla. Of course it is also difficult to find a HZ black mare in our breed. I know they are out there, but they are few and far
between. It will take a while, but this match will throw grulla foals. One has to throw the black gene and the stallion has to
throw his dun to get a grulla. It will really be lucky if both throw black and he throws his dun because then you would have
a grulla foal that is HZ black and that would be a great asset to a breeding program. You can also get the color with a bay
or buckskin as they are also black based. But if they throw the agouti, then you will not have a grulla as the black will be
restricted to the points only. Now you see why it is less expensive and much quicker to buy one already here.So if you
have the time, sit back and relax. Let us do the work and you can pick from the pretty foals that hit the ground at our farm
in the coming years.