Smoky cream

Smoky cream is a horse coat color consisting of a cream colored body with a cream or white mane and tail, similar to the related cremello and perlino. The color is caused by homozygous condition on the cream gene acting on a black base coat. Smoky creams have pink skin, blue eyes, and a cream or rusty-cream coat. The pink skin and blue eyes are not pigment-free, and can be readily distinguished from white markings, which contain no pigment in the skin or hair.

Only DNA testing can completely verify that a smoky cream is not a perlino or a cremello. A smoky cream has two copies of the cream gene and differs from a cremello because it has the dominant extension gene ("E") that is indicative of a black coat. However, it also will not carry the agouti gene ("A") that produces the bay color that characterizes the genetics of a perlino. A related color, produced when a black horse is heterozygous for the cream gene, is smoky black. Smoky blacks appear to be a slightly faded black shade, and in some cases, do not appear to have a coat color dilution at all. Again, genetic testing can verify if a horse is a smoky black.

Smoky creams and other cream dilutes are not white horses, which have pigmentless white hair coats. While it is possible, depending on the pedigree of the horse, that a smoky cream horse may also possess other color or pattern genes, such as the frame overo gene associated with lethal white syndrome, the smoky cream color itself is in no way related to any "lethal white" condition. True albinism has never been observed in horses; like other cream dilutes, smoky creams retain some pigment and therefore are not albinos.

ee also

*Cream gene
*Cremello
*Dilution gene
*Equine coat color
*Equine coat color genetics
*Perlino
*Smoky black

References

* [http://www.vgl.ucdavis.edu/services/coatcolorhorse.php "Horse coat color tests"] from the UC Davis Veterinary Genetics Lab
* [http://www.vgl.ucdavis.edu/services/coatcolor.php "Introduction to Coat Color Genetics"] "from" Veterinary Genetics Laboratory, School of Veterinary Medicine, University of California, Davis. Web Site accessed July 20, 2008
* [http://www.morganhorse.com/pdf/ColorMarkingsGuidelines.pdf American Morgan Horse Association Color/Markings Guidelines, 2006]