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Reference: Merry Gypsy Rose |
Photo courtesy of Franne Brandon on the
Walking with Mares page
When Merry Gypsy Rose
foaled Merry Yellow Rose on August 28th of 1958, I doubt her breeder knew
that she'd one day be the center of a controversy regarding the origins of
a line of horses with the cream gene.
Merry Yellow Rose is
best known as the dam of the well known palomino stallion, The Gold Rush
is On. She is also the source of one of the color lines for
Blue Gold, through his dam
Big Star's Gold Lady
and her dam Hero Merry Rose - daughter of Merry Yellow Rose registered as
"chestnut." If she truly were chestnut, she couldn't have passed
a cream gene. HOWEVER, many very dark (usually sooty) palominos appear to
be chestnut at birth. (Take
Jetstar's Sunrider, for example. Even as an adult, this
genetically sooty palomino appeared the be a flaxen chestnut.) The other
possibility is that she could have been a lighter colored smokey black or
sooty buckskin, which can be mistaken for black or dark chestnut. Now,
assuming that Hero Merry Rose did carry a cream gene inherited from Merry
Yellow Rose, let's explore how this could've happened:
1. An Honest Mistake.
Despite
everybody's best efforts, accidents do happen. I've known many people
surprised by the fertitility of a young colt...and when Merry Yellow Rose
was foaled there would've been no way to test her parentage even if
her breeders had knowledge of color genetics.
 2.
Misidentified Colors.
As I said above, sometimes a sooty
palomino or a smokey black can be misidentified as a chestnut. This
could have been the case with Merry Gypsy Rose. The one photo I've
ever seen of her (at right) shows a darker colored mare who is clearly
sabino. The base color could be liver chestnut, sooty palomino (though I'd
have expect more lighter colored mane and tail), sooty buckskin or smokey
black. I can't say for sure. She was by Merry Boy, a black sabino...so she
could have been black based. Given her producing a bay out of Merry Go Boy
though, I'd hay to say she carried an agouti gene. In that case, she
couldn't be smokey black. She'd have had to have been a sooty buckskin if
she were black based and carried a cream gene (like
Darrah's Cappucinno
Girl). With no DNA samples available to test, we may never
know.
3. Fraud.
Actual registration
fraud did exist. Stallion owners seeking to promote their studs would lay
claim to successful show prospects. Even to this day, I have personally
met several "unregistered" but full blooded TWH geldings whose papers were
pulled because they weren't going to make show horses and the stallion
owner wanted to keep a reputation of producing more show horses. When
spotted horses because popular in the 1980's, some suspiciously squre
moving tobianos showed up in the breed to two solid parents...but it
wasn't always about color! There are just as many bay, black and chestnuts
who aren't who they are supposed to be.
We may never know the real story behind this mare
and her mysterious color. While her presence in a pedigree excludes all of
her desendants from International Heritage Walking Horse registration, we
can still be sure that she regardless of her true parentage, this mare
produced excellent foals who went on to shape the walking horse breed,
typically in the western walking horses. Her daughter, Hero Merry Rose
produced Big Star's Gold Lady,
dam of Blue Gold who founded
the Arrow's Walkers breeding program in Colorado. That line is renowned
for producing smart, 4 beat gaited deep golden horses who excel in all
walks of life. Blue Gold
produced Golden Gambler,
who founded the Westwood Farms breeding program in Virginia. Merry Yellow
Rose also produced the palomino stallion, The Gold Rush Is On, who was
owned and loved by Mary Ellen Areaux of Walkers West in Texas.
MERRY GYPSY ROSE
TWHBEA #420902
DOB: 3/07/1940
DOD: Y
COLOR: CHESTNUT (SABINO)
MARKINGS:
BOTH HIND AND OFF FORE STOCKINGS, NEAR FORE CORONET, BALD,
FLAX MANE AND TAIL. |
MERRY BOY
TWHBEA #350189
COLOR: BLACK
SABINO
 |
ROAN
ALLEN
TWHBEA #F-38
COLOR: CHESTNUT SABINO
HEIGHT: 15.3H
|
ALLAN
TWHBEA #F-1
COLOR: BLACK
|
GERTRUDE
TWHBEA #84
COLOR: CHESTNUT SABINO
MARKINGS: FOUR STOCKINGS, BALD, MIXED
MANE AND TAIL. |
MERRY
LEGS
TWHBEA #F-4
COLOR: BAY SABINO
|
ALLAN
TWHBEA #F-1
COLOR: BLACK
|
NELL DEMENT
TWHBEA #3
COLOR: CHESTNUT |
GOLDEN GLOWE S.
TWHBEA #431978
COLOR:
CHESTNUT
MARKINGS: STRIP |
BON GALANT
TWHBEA #11745
(THOROUGHBRED) |
UNKNOWN |
| UNKNOWN |
CHESTNUT MARE
TWHBEA #12219
COLOR:
CHESTNUT |
UNKNOWN |
| UNKNOWN |
OFFSPRING
| TWHBEA |
NAME |
COLOR |
SEX |
DOB |
SIRE |
| 500039 |
MERRY GO GYPSY |
BAY |
M |
5/25/1949 |
MERRY GO BOY
|
| 530514 |
GYPSY HEADLIGHT |
BAY (SABINO) |
M |
4/21/1953 |
STERLING SILVER H. (GREY) |
| 541180 |
OLD GLORY'S GYPSY T. F. |
"SORREL" |
M |
4/04/1954 |
OLD GLORY'S BIG MAN |
| 590180 |
MERRY YELLOW ROSE |
"YELLOW" - PALOMINO
SABINO WITH "FOUR STOCKINGS, BALD, WHITE MANE & TAIL." |
M |
8/28/1958 |
MERRY GO BOY
|
| 622583 |
GYPSY ROSE BUD |
"WHITE" WITH "SORREL
ON BOTH HIPS, ON HEAD." |
M |
3/19/1962 |
GO BOYS JOHNNY |
| 643342 |
GYPSY ROSE'S SUN L.F. |
"SORREL" |
S |
1/01/1964 |
MIDNIGHT BLUE BOOGER |
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