HGG Community Forums

You've got your question in the correct category of the forum. If you put the combination you don't understand here, someone will be along to explain them. I'll be glad to be one of the people that does that.

If the explanation is still confusing, don't hesitate to ask for more help. You're not the only person whose first language is not English, so we're used to helping out.

I noticed in another thread that you were puzzled by AFPT and, I assume, other common abbreviations. Here are some of them.

AFPT--Average Foal Performance Test--this is a way to judge how good a horse is for breeding. Part of the Performance Inspection is a number that is based on how many points a horse adds to its show score with each training. The higher the PT number, the more points get added, generally speaking. PT scores look like this: 8.4, 9.7, 10.5. 12.0 and so on.

So, when a mare or stallion has more than one foal that have been through the Performance Inspection, you can add up all those numbers and then divide the answer by the number of foals. This gives you the Average Foal Performance Test score. The higher that score, the better the horse is at breeding.

DHH--Daily Herd Helper

GP--Gulastra Plume. This is a hidden gene (not part of the gene testing) that has to be homozygous to express itself. When it is found on a bay, buckskin, or amber champagne horse, it causes the tail to be white or grayish starting from the bottom. Splash and some other white spotting genes will cause a white bottom to the tail, too, so you have to pay attention to whether the ancestors of a horse had gene. Any horse can carry the gene and pass it on, but it only shows up for certain colors.

Here is a bay horse with GP.

Shell Design JDPwS2

KP--Kit Promoter. This is another hidden gene that has to be homozygous to be seen. The horse must also have two copies of Kit mutations--roan, tobiano, sabino, white spotted. It can be the same mutation or different ones. It causes cloudy white patches to appear on the horse. Once again, you have to keep track of the ancestors.

Here is a horse with KP.

Spontaneous KPtTW2

DP--Dense Pheomelanin. This is a hidden gene that is one of two darkening genes. The other one, which can be tested) is Sooty--Ssty. DP causes the amount of red pigment in hair cells to be larger than normal, making the horse appear darker. If a chestnut horse has 3 copies of the darkening genes--SStySSty Dpdp or SstyS DPDP, it will be called a Liver Chestnut. If it also has a copy of the Cream gene Ccr, it will be called a Chocolate Palomino. Four copies of darkening genes will make chestnut and red based horses even darker, almost black.

Any horse can carry DP, and in combination with Sooty will have darker coats if their base coat color is red. DP does not affect black hair. There aren't any special names for these horses, so we have to learn to recognize the presence of DP there.

Well, that's a start. Let us know what else you're wondering about.