Talk:Finnhorse/archive Nov 2009 - May 2010

Colors, Colours
As for sabino white, I know of a single stallion, Vekselin Ihme, that lived 1991-2008 and was a definite SW. His information at Sukuposti.net will show that he was registered as "chestnut, sabino", and pictures on the same site such as this and this prove his pattern a typical SW with minimal scattered pigment on the body and full pigmentation only in the ears. Vekselin Ihme was widely known for his extremely rare colouring, and made several appearances because of his colour. For some reason, he only left two offspring, of which one was gelded, and the other has been born only in 2008. The gelding offspring seems to have classical minimum sabino "suokki style", while his dam does not seem to express even minimal sabino markings. The stallion offspring seems non-sabino. Vekselin Ihme's sire Vekseli was registered as sabino and was expressed minimally (lip white seen in the headshot); the dam's information mentions no markings but the picture identifies her as a modestly expressed sabino. Vekseli has also left numerous other, boldly expressed sabinos. In general, the Finnhorse version of Sabino gene seems to be imperfectly dominant, but instead of sabino whites, homozygous genotype seems to create a boldly marked fenotype. Skimpy expression sabinos are numerous, so the Finnhorse version might be "limited". It is possible that the pattern of Vekselin Ihme was due to a unique mutation though, and I do believe it would explain why there haven't been any other SWs (at least as far as I know). Pitke (talk) 22:21, 25 November 2009 (UTC)


 * He's an interesting fellow and does fit the SB-1 description, but "prove" by photos? Tough to do -- was he ever actually DNA tested for color?  I say this because you may also want to look at dominant white, which he also fits (dominant white may not be pure white and may have similar pigmentation).  The sire might be claimed to be sabino, but  that lower lip spot is about as minimal as minimal can be -- unless he has a body spot on the off side or something else not visible in the photos.  However, I wonder if the sire could be silver dapple, he seems oddly golden for a chestnut... interesting.   But I digress.  Usually the SB-1 mustangs and such have far bolder-colored parents, and to be maximum white like this fellow apparently requires homozygous SB-1 genetics, which then usually means the horse also throws bolder colored foals than these.  On the other hand, dominant white is either all or nothing, white or the dam's color, no in-between, which is more consistent with his offspring.
 * I mention this because you don't usually see SB-1 outside of the Spanish colonial-influenced breeds. For example, I about had a kitten when someone started advertising a (not gray) truly white Arabian as "bay sabino-white" because there just has not been SB-1 in Arabians, and when they did do testing on him, it turned out he was actually a dominant white, a new first-generation mutation, color totally unrelated to his parents' genetics.  (And this is consistent in his get who are either white or nothing, no in-between spotting unless from the dam)  The research review the lead editor did while writing the dominant white article was fascinating; dominant white is not selected for in nature, it may be lethal to a developing embryo when homozygous, and apparently all lines of modern horses with it can be traced to specific animals foaled with the mutation, and foaled after 1900...very weird.  Anyway, my two bits.  Montanabw (talk) 00:19, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
 * It is true that his phenotype could easily be dominant white (and thus a new mutation), but as it's very likely the Finnhorse carries a non-SB1 type, he couldn't have been tested for sabino. As for the sire, he's not of any of the known silver dapple families, and in general bright shades and great variation in the shades of the colour are typical for the Finnhorse, I could argue that we have the most bloody sorrels ever but also the most yellow :> BUT as I was coming to the point, the horse was registered as sabino and there is no way to know; he could have been a born mutant with a dominant or then not. With so few offspring it is hard to make any good deductions, since the probability that one or even both of those foals in fact are not his is not that staggeringly little that it "couldn't" happen. I suppose Vekselin Ihme donated some of his tissues for the colour research about the Finnhorse, but AFAIK they haven't released any results yet. Pitke (talk) 10:14, 26 November 2009 (UTC)


 * To the best of my knowledge, only SB-1 creates Sabino-white like this fellow. So if there isn't SB-1 in the Finnhorse (just as no SB-1 in Clydesdales or Arabians, though they too have some kind of "Sabino") then he must be a dominant white.  But only offspring will tell if he hasn't been tested.  If he threw 50-50 white foals and solid foals, you'd be pretty sure you had a dominant white, whereas if he threw a lot of spotting, then SB-1 more likely.  But if the horse has passed on and no DNA is available, we'll never know.  Bummer about that! He was a pretty boy, I'll say that.  Montanabw (talk) 02:36, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Spelling
IMHO the spelling in this article should be according to the UK standards because that's what the schools in Finland promote. Pitke (talk) 07:02, 11 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I see no problem with that. As long as it is consistent throughout.  I think we redid a couple of British breeds entirely in UK English for similar reasons.  The default "rule" in English wiki is that whoever starts the article gets to set whether it uses UK or US English, unless there is a really broad consensus to change, usually because there is some extremely logical reason to change (for example, Barak Obama would be a logical article to write in US English, while Gordon Brown is obviously a UK English article, no matter who started them !  LOL!)  But here, if the Finns want to use UK English in translations, I see no reason to do otherwise. Go for it.  Montanabw (talk) 07:48, 11 December 2009 (UTC)