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You are correct in saying that your liver foal's dam has DP, and I can confidently say that she is heterozygous for DP, since she has one SSty but isn't liver.

It seems you already know this but I'll add it just in case! DP is a darkening gene like SSty and works with SSty to create liver. For a liver to appear, there needs to be three present darkening genes, typically two SSty and one DP but sometimes one SSty and two DP. If the horse has four darkening genes, so homozygous for SSty and DP, it is a black chestnut.

As for your bay horse, I don't believe she carries DP. As I recently learned, DP darkens traditional bay like it does for chestnut. The blood bay coat color comes from DP affecting wild bay (A+), which your horse doesn't have.

And for your last question on hetero DP being a separate gene from DP, it's not! Hetero would just mean heterozygous, also shortened as het, which means the horse only carries one copy of that gene. Homozygous, often abbreviated hom or hz, means the horse carries two copies of the gene.

Though if Cheers says that the horse is probably DP, it's probably DP, she knows much more than me lol!

Very interesting! I agree with you, Cheers - I really like the red blood bays. I've seen quite a few, but this one is quite red!

Thank you!