HGG Community Forums

There is a link to information about the various genes in the Genetics Guide at the bottom of the left menu bar, although it's a work in progress, and not completed for all genes.

Cream is the gene that works largely to dilute the color of red hair on horses. It is what gives us Palominos on a chestnut base and Buckskins on a bay base. It also works a little bit on black, though it has to be homozygous to have any easily visible effect. A black horse with one copy of Ccr is called a Smokey Black and will be hard to distinguish from a regular black horse. A black horse with two copies of Ccr is called a Smokey Cream and can be identified easily.

There are three forms of the cream gene. The third one is Pearl--Cprl. It is not as strong a mutation as Ccr, and has to be homozygous (the horse has a copy of Cprl from both parents) to affect coat color.

Sonny if you want some examples may I recommend you look at the Breeders Clubs under the Community Tab on the left. There are both cream and pearl breeders clubs, so you can go to them and click on some horses to check out the possible color and pattern combinations. You can also use the Search Horses link in the Community Tab and search for the cream or pearl genes under the base color Tab.