Buckskin

Buckskin: how the color works and is inherited

Buckskin combines a bay base with one Cream variant copy in SLC45A2. Cream mainly lightens the bay horse’s reddish hair to yellow or gold. Black pigment in the mane, tail and lower legs stays much darker.

A buckskin passes its Cream copy on with a one-in-two chance. Its foal’s color also depends on the base color and variants inherited from the other parent.

Buckskin: origins and the role of breeding

Cream coats come from a naturally occurring variant of SLC45A2. Ancient DNA shows that this variant existed almost 3,000 years ago, including in buckskin horses from Siberia. Identifying the genetic mechanism in 2003 explained a color that had already existed for a long time.

Buckskin can arise within one breed whenever the necessary variants come together. Planned matings increase the chance of this coat; they do not manufacture the Cream variant.

• Ludwig et al. (2009) — Coat Color Variation at the Beginning of Horse Domestication
• Mariat et al. (2003) — A mutation in the MATP gene causes the cream coat colour in the horse