Warrior: An Excellent Horse Book

Title: Warrior, The Amazing Story of a Real War Horse
Author: General Jack Seely
Rating: 4.8/5
Sadness: Enough to make your eyes tear up, nothing more.
Comprehensibility: Good, especially considering I'm unknowledgeable about WWI and war tactics.
Correct portrayal of horses/horse training: Yes. Very.

If you haven't read Warrior, read it. (And don't confuse it with the recent "War Horse" movie. Completely different plot.)

In short, it's a book authored by General Jack Seely (Warrior's owner) of a horse that fought throughout the entire Great War. Let me persuade you as to why you should read it:

• It's a tale about an amazing horse.
• The writing is gorgeous.
• It's written by a British fellow who uses terms like "tenner" and "cheque".
• The past-tense facts feel like present-tense happenings.
• The explanation of complex war movements are comprehendible to those unfamiliar with war tactics.
• You get to personally know both the horse and the author.
• The book was written before the horse died, so you don't have to worry about getting all attached to Warrior before his death.
• The author knew his horses and how to train them; this is incorporated frequently throughout his writing.
• It clearly shows that horses have the potential to be more intimate and close with humans than dogs can be.
• It also shows that horses can be more friendly than dogs:
• To quote chapter 7, "... you will note with what immense interest your horse will eye the new A.D.C. He knows very well that much of his comfort and well-being depends on this mysterious man ... who seems able to order about people who are much older than himself! Horses are even quicker than dogs at noticing these things, although, unlike dogs, they are not snobs." The author then goes on to point out that dogs will attach themselves to the highest person in rank. Horses, on the other hand, offer the same amount of affection to a general as to a servant.

Some complain about the book hiding the real horror of war. Let me clarify: The book is about Warrior, a horse. Not World War I. If you want to read about WWI and the depression that comes along with death, go find a different book for now.

If you haven't yet, read Warrior. I think you'll find this a good read even if horses disinterest you.

Black Chestnut: A Tricky Color

Imagine a black-colored horse galloping through a field lit by the hazy sunset... and the horse had been born illegitimately from chestnut parents. This causes a problem. Chestnut x chestnut ≠ black. Ever. So, what's the deal with this black-colored horse?

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Black chestnut horses are a tricky bunch to the untaught eye. They can appear black (A^a) over more than 95% of their body, when, in genotype, they are chestnut (E^e). Not to mention, the label "black chestnut" may hint that the horse carries the black allele when the horse either may or may not.

The easiest way to tell if a black-looking horse is chestnut-based is to scan the fetlock color (near each hoof). This is where the base coat of a chestnut will show through.

This is the only picture I have of a black chestnut. The Morgan's name was Joker and he was one of the sweetest geldings around. I don't remember much of him except that he was black-colored with red-tinges near each hoof, and this had me deeply confused.

Black chestnut Morgan gelding. Picture taken by my older bro.

Now that you understand what a black chestnut horse looks like, let's move on to the two alleles to blame for black chestnut horses.

Alleles that darken chestnut to black chestnut:

• Shade
• Sooty

The shade allele controls the lightness or darkness of a horse's coat. There is more to be discovered about it; such as how it works, which locus it resides in, and how it reacts with other alleles. The easiest way to understand the shade allele is to realize its effects: the shade (brightness/darkness/saturation) of every color can vary.

Neither the shade nor the sooty allele have a concrete label (for example, Yz^Yz), but that should soon change with the growing knowledge of color genetics.

The sooty allele works a little differently than shade allele to accomplish a similar effect (darkening): Shade darkens (or lightens) the horse throughout the whole coat, whereas sooty mixes in black hairs with the base color, darkening the coat in certain areas and leaving other areas 83.7885% untouched.

The strength of the sooty effects varies greatly and can go unnoticed when minor enough. At the opposite end of the spectrum, there are so many black hairs mixed in that the horse is practically black. On bay, the least-affected sooty areas include the flank and muzzle. On black, the effects generally unnoticeable. And, on chestnut, the sooty is fairly flat and consistent, with only the fetlock area left unchanged.

Geneticists are reasoning that there are two different sooty alleles, noting that the affects of sooty on Agouti-based horses (bay, black) differ from those on chestnut-based horses.