Champagne Dilution

Description

The Champagne dilution gene lightens a horse’s coat color by diluting both red and black pigment. The resulting color depends on the horse’s base color: black coats lighten to a chocolate or taupe shade, chestnut coats to gold, and bay coats to a golden tan with brown points. A horse can also carry more than one dilution gene, which further affects coat color.

Although Champagne can resemble the Cream, Pearl, and Dun dilutions, it has distinctive features. Champagne horses typically have pinkish skin with freckling or mottling, a coat with a metallic sheen that is often slightly darker in winter, and amber, hazel, or light brown eyes. Foals are usually born with blue eyes that darken to amber or hazel as they mature, and the freckling of the skin becomes more pronounced over time, especially around the eyes, muzzle, and genitals.

The Champagne dilution has been documented in Quarter Horses, Tennessee Walking Horses, American Saddlebreds, Missouri Fox Trotters, Miniature Horses, and several other breeds.

Base color interactions

Classic Champagne: Black horses (non-bay) are diluted to classic champagne, in which all body pigment is lightened to a taupe or chocolate color, often with a slightly darker mane, tail, and legs.

Gold Champagne: Chestnut (sorrel) horses are diluted to gold. The whole coat is diluted evenly, and gold champagnes often have a flaxen mane and tail. They can look very similar to palominos, which are chestnut horses diluted by one copy of the Cream gene.

Amber Champagne: Bay horses carrying Champagne are called amber champagne. Because Champagne dilutes both red and black pigment, the whole coat of the bay horse is lightened, giving a golden tan body with lightened brown points. Amber champagnes are sometimes called amber buckskins.

Inheritance

Champagne is inherited as a dominant trait, so a horse with a single copy of the gene shows champagne characteristics. Unlike Cream, there is no reliable visual difference between a horse with one copy and a horse with two copies. A homozygous champagne horse (Ch/Ch) will always pass one copy of the gene to its foals, while a heterozygous horse (n/Ch) has a 50% chance of passing it to each foal.

Why test for Champagne?

Animal Genetics tests for the dominant Champagne mutation. Testing is useful when a horse with a lightened coat has tested negative for Cream or Silver, or when a champagne horse’s appearance could be confused with a cream dilute. Testing also shows whether a horse carries two copies of Champagne and will pass it to all of its offspring.

Possible results

Breeds Affected

American Quarter Horse, Tennessee Walking Horse, American Saddlebred, Missouri Fox Trotter, Miniature Horse, American Cream Draft, Racking Horse, Spotted Saddle Horse, Kentucky Mountain Saddle Horse, Rocky Mountain Horse, Appaloosa, Paint Horse

Reference

Missense mutation in exon 2 of SLC36A1 responsible for champagne dilution in horses.

Related Tests

• Cream Dilution — the dilution most often confused with champagne
• Pearl Dilution — another rare dilution with a similar lightening effect
• Silver Dilution — rule out before concluding a lightened coat is champagne

Testing more than one color trait? The Color Panel includes this test plus seven others for $75.