OzVet

So, here’s a neat little horse mystery I came up with yesterday after some online research I was doing. Hope you enjoy!

You work as a detective at the local police station in Anytown, USA. It’s Saturday morning, and you’ve gone into the office to see if you can’t finish up several things you were working on at the end of last week. You’ve had your cup of coffee and have just settled down at your computer when the phone rings. Slightly annoyed, you pick it up.

On the other end is Megan Waltkins, a woman you’ve met before at a few of the local horse shows. She’s got a big stocky quarter horse mare who always cleans up and takes all the ribbons in the hunter and jumper classes. You can’t understand what she’s saying at first, because she’s so frantic and she sounds like she’s nearly in tears. Finally, you calm her down enough to figure out what the problem is. Seems like her star jumping mare had a foal yesterday morning. She checked on the mare and foal in the barn last night right before going to bed. However, when she got up this morning to feed the horses, the mare was whinnying and in a panic, and the foal was gone! Then, she went over to her neighbor’s house, Jan Jonston, and saw in Jan’s paddock a tiny baby foal that looked just like her missing foal.

She tells you that she accused Jan of stealing her foal, but Jan completely denies any wrong doing, and claims the baby belongs to one of her mares. About then, you hear Jan in the background yelling at Megan to stop trespassing and get off her property. You tell Megan to stay calm, hang up the phone and jump in your truck. Nine AM on a Saturday and you’re already dealing with trespassing neighbors and potentially stolen horses. However, you want to make sure you get out there before this escalates to anything worse–you could tell from the phone conversation that both Megan and Jan were pretty upset.

Upon arriving at Jan’s farm, you see Megan and Jan both hovering near the front corral. They both come running towards you, shouting their stories at the same time , and you can’t understand a thing. You hold up your hand and glare at them, and they both fall silent. Slowly, you walk over to the corral and examine the horses.

In the corral is Jan’s big chestnut mare. You’ve seen the mare before, she’s got a big white blaze and 2 white socks. She’s as fast as the devil, and Jan nearly always wins the barrel racing with her every year at the county rodeo. By her side is a tiny bay foal with a bit white blaze and 2 white socks. They’re built very similarly and look stunningly beautiful standing together in the mid-morning sun. The foal starts nursing. You notice the mare’s large udder, she obviously foaled fairly recently.

Slowly, Jan starts telling you her story. She claims the foal, who she’s named Eddie, was born two days ago. She bred the mare last year to Doc Thomas’s palomino roping horse stud. You know exactly what horse she’s talking about, he’s a big stocky dark palomino who always leads the 4th of July parade. He’s a gorgeous horse, and you remember Doc telling you last year that he was going to start using him for breeding. Jan says she’s so proud of the baby, and is planning on it being her next great barrel horse. Then, she tells you how Megan came over here this morning and started claiming that she had stolen Megan’s new foal.

She goes on and on, and her story seems believable. Also, you can see that the mare and foal look happy and peaceful together. Luckily, though, you realize this should be a fairly simple case to solve as you seem to know a bit more about horse breeding than both these ladies. You stop Jan from talking and carefully explain to the ladies which mare the foal belongs to and which one of them is telling the truth.

What did you tell them? Which mare does the foal belong to, Megan’s jumping mare, or Jan’s barrel racing horse?

Click here if you need a hint!

Click here for the answer!

You explain to Jan that you believe she’s lying. If the sire was Doc’s palomino horse, and the mare is her big chestnut horse, it would be completely impossible for the baby to be bay. A chestnut crossed with a palomino will produce only palomino or chestnut foals, never bays.
(This, however, assumes that the mare was only bred to the palomino stud. If for example, a bay stud had jumped a fence while the mare was in heat and bred her, it would be perfectly feasible to end up with a bay colt. However, you know Jan usually keeps her mare in the stable and neither her nor any of the near neighbors has a stallion. )
As soon as you explain a bit of color genetics to her, she grows sheepish and admits to stealing the foal. The case is solved, the foal gets reunited with it’s true mother and you make sure the law takes care of an appropriate punishment for Jan.

I spent a good chunk of time yesterday reading about horse color genetics, which are fascinating. The ranch I worked at several years ago had a palomino stud which they bred to their broodmares, most of which were chestnuts, bays and palominos. So, the ranch ended up with a ton of bucksin and palomino babies. Lots of people these days try and breed horses for certain colors. (actually, not just these days, people have been doing this for years.) However, unless you know exactly what you’re doing (and even if you do!) this can get incredibly complicated really fast.

The hint website above has some pretty good charts for the more basic colors and a few of the diluting genes, including creme, dun, silver and champagne. Enjoy!