Instructions
Educate yourself on the appaloosa characteristics. These are: spotted coat; freckled skin around the nose and eyes, as well as around the genitals; white sclera around the eyeballs; striped hooves; sparse mane and tail with multicolored hairs in the mix. A dominant appaloosa will carry all of these characteristics, and if you are breeding for color, you want them all.
Select a mare or a stallion with the leopard-spot pattern on their coat. The base color can be anything; bay, black, brown, dun, chestnut, even grey --- although grey is not preferred as when the horse greys out the spotted coat pattern will not be visible. The pattern will be a large "blanket" of one color --- such as white --- with leopard-shaped "spots" of another color mixed across the solid color. The horse in the photo is a white and chestnut leopard-spot pattern, a very desirable color combination.
Make sure the horse you choose has superior overall conformation. You should not breed a horse strictly for color. If the horse is not an outstanding individual, its offspring will likely inherit its poor conformation as well as its color. In the horse market, competition is fierce and poor-quality horses --- regardless of color --- won't win as many championships as appaloosas with both quality and color.
Choose a mate with a leopard-spot pattern as well. While it is possible to breed appaloosas from any color combination --- even breeding stock appaloosas can throw color --- matching two leopard-spot appaloosa horses is a near guarantee you will end up with a spotted foal. The leopard-spot pattern appears to be a dominant gene, so getting two parents that carry it give the foal a 75 percent chance of being spotted. A breeding stock appaloosa is the foal of two registered appaloosas and carries the "spotting" gene but does not display it.
Choose appaloosas with as many appaloosa characteristics as possible to help stack the genetics deck in your favor. If you cannot find two appaloosas with the leopard-spot pattern, find one and then choose a mate that has as many other appaloosa characteristics as possible: striped hooves, mottled skin; white sclera in the eye; and sparse mane and tail. Looking for the genetic display of appaloosa traits will help you produce the most offspring with appaloosa color.
How to Breed Appaloosas for Color
Breeding horses has fascinated people for thousands of years. Breeding horses for color is an even trickier business that involves guesswork and luck, as well as planning and investigation. Although technology has made breeding for color simpler, there are still some color patterns that elude genetic markers --- the appaloosa pattern is one of them.