 |
Tobiano
Tobiano is one of many genes that block pigment in patches
of the horse's skin and hair. It's fairly easy to
recognize:
The white tends to look like it's been poured on from above,
crossing the center (withers or backbone) at some point, with
the legs having white from the bottom up. However, this
gene does not put white on the face.
Abbreviated To,
tobiano is a (simple) dominant gene.
Its absence is abbreviated to. There is a
DNA
test available for it.
-
ToTo - the horse will
usually have some tobiano type white areas,
and will pass the gene on to every foal. (But some horses
can have To without having any white areas.)
-
Toto - the horse will usually have some tobiano white
areas,
and there is a 50% chance of any of its foals inheriting
it.
-
toto - no
tobiano. The horse will not have tobiano white areas,
and will not be able to pass it on to any of its foals.
A minimally marked tobiano will usually
have at least a trace of white somewhere along its backbone, perhaps
at the withers, which would extend into any mane hair that grows out
of that spot.
Pinto or Paint used to be divided
into only two types:
tobiano and overo.
The overo
category was later found to include many different, distinct spotting
patterns/genes, each described on this web site on its own separate
page. Today, overo used alone can
mean any combination of these, but is sometimes used specifically to
mean frame overo.
"Tovero" refers to
tobiano combined with
any of the overo
patterns/genes (see links to each one, below.)
Most tobianos seem to have at least one
overo gene, probably sabino, giving them at least some white on the
face, so most tobianos could probably be called "toveros". |
 |
|
