Equine Color Genetics

Easy to understand, authoritiative, from one of the best experts in the field of genetics. Comprehendable, thorough discussions and plenty of beautiful pictures. Highly reccomended for anyone interested in learning the basics of equine color genetics.

The topic of horse coloration has confounded breeders for centuries. Phil Sponenberg has taken a very complex topic and has broken it down into easily understood parts. The pictures grab you by the eyes and inspire equine artists as well as breeders. The various modes of inheritance were well explained and easily understood. The photos allow the reader to distinguish even fine points of difference between two animals. This book is a must for the serious horse person.

If there was any one good book focusing on the genetics of horse color, this book is it! It's the best and most accurate book I have found on the subject, and it covers all equine colors from the basics to the more rare colors. A must have for anyone intersted in horse color research! It even includes donkey colors. HIGHLY RECCOMMENED!

D. Phillip Sponenberg, DVM, PhD, is one of a mere handful of real authorities on the inheritance of horse coat color -- a topic fraught with inherent complexities and burdened down with massive amounts of "lore" that amounts all too often to nothing more than misinformation or dysinformation. Well illustrated with color plates. Covers latest trait linkage tests (as for lethal white foal) and results of the author's extensive and in some cases unprecedented studies of horse color genetics. Not a "popular" treatment (it's from Iowa State University Press, Ames, a place of high seriousness when it comes to livestock and creatures of any sort likely to be found around farms), it is, nonetheless, accessible and generally clear. A somewhat more recent book by Sponenberg and Beaver is shorter and perhaps less "academic" than Horse Color, which is a valuable book with few, if any (in its class), competitors.

As a breeder of Quarter Horses and Paints, I've found this book to be an excellent tool to help make breeding decisions. It has also proven to be an extrememly accurate predictor of the color of foals from a particular mating.