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Ali-Zeus (now deceased)
Purebred Arabian; DNA tested Ee, aa; never looked black anywhere,
according to his owner, who was:
Tamara Woodcock
Aelfleah Farm
Scurry, Texas
BLUE STAR Arabians and
Arabian-influenced Sportponies
www.aelfleahfarm.com
tamara@aelfleahfarm.com
Our most recent picture of Ali-Zeus, above, was received April 5, 2007. Tamara said
of it: "This was taken this past weekend. He was body clipped on February 20th, so is
in short summer coat now." And in a later email about the same picture:
"Thanks! The gold you see is the winter undercoat exposed by clipping. In
about 2 more weeks, the gold won't show thorough anymore after it sheds,
just leaving the brown. But still no black! Sadly, his first foal shows no
signs of dilution except blue-ish eyes (more blue than normal, but not as
obvious as ZEUS's gold eyes)."
... of this picture of Ali-Zeus' "blue-eyed" purebred Arabian son, Tamara
wrote: "Photo was taken with a flash, so that's why the fur is so bright.
This is a bay colt by ALI-ZEUS and out of ASF WITNESS. His eye, I
think, will darken some more, but will always have a blue tint. Or then
again, he could follow along with a related filly, and his eyes change from
blue to honey has he ages. Just have to wait. " -Tamara
Tamara wrote: "I've had my Zeus through summer coat into winter coat and
back into summer coat (this time protected by a 24x7 flysheet) it is obvious
that he too will stay brown, and shed out to brown every season, yet have
actually DNA tested Eeaa! Plus those diluted yellow gold eyes."
<= June 2005
<=Nov. 2005
<= all five from Dec. 2005
<= one from Feb. 2006
  <=
these three are from April 2006. All three taken on the same day, with
the sun at different locations
relative to the horse and camera.
<= July 2006
In December of 2005, Tamara wrote:
"... saw his sister (same sire out of full sibling dam) this weekend. The
filly looks exactly like him in build as should be expected from such close
relations, but she also matched color-wise. All of her black points (mane,
tail, legs) are the exact same shade of "black", which is actually brown, as
Zeus." ... "Same gold eyes also. Zeus isn't homozygous" (for black, so
he's Ee) "but he is non-agouti." (aa) "The filly hasn't been tested but she is
bay based (agouti)." (A_) "I haven't looked at further testing. UC Davis
did the test this summer." (2005)
Caution: if you scroll down farther, you will see a shot of the skin
under Ali-Zeus' tail. This is very interesting, as it does look like the
skin of some sort of a dilute, since the underside of the tail itself has light
skin. The "white" is just sunlight.
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