Q&A - Unrealistic Colors in Pedigree Assignment

Question
Is there an acceptable way of PAing decorator models for use in a breeding program? Breyer has lots of colors that we won't ever see on a real horse, such as blue, gold charm, woodgrain, heavy gloss - and I recently got a Hartland ASB that is done in metallic orange chestnut! Is it tolerable to tone down their color on a s/d and, for example, say a gold charm model is a bright palomino?

Answer
Yes, one of the great ironies of PA is that as we get better and better with our color genetics, model horse companies seem more and more determined to push the envelope on horses (just what the heck color is Carpe Diem and Malachite??) For those of us who like to collect the decorators, careful PAing can be a trick.

I do exactly as you suggested... tone down the color to the closest real horse color and pedigree it that way. For example, all of my woodgrains are listed as bay, and on their s/d lists, I write bay (woodgrain) so that people know exactly what the color of the horse is. Florentines make good dappled palominos, a Wedgewood could be a dappled grey, Copenhagen could be grey, gold charms could be a bright palomino, 'green' horses like Malachite could be a dark bay, and so forth. Carpe Diem...he's tricky, but he might make a good silver dapple or even grey. I don't usually bother with the glossy part - I guess it's just a well-groomed horse!

In the meantime, when I show the decorator colors in the IPABRA or other classlists, I'll put them in an other color or decorator class even though I may have researched their pedigree to reflect BAY or BLUE ROAN.

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