Tarpan's so called 'benefit' causing trouble

You can't turn it off but you can use it to advantage. Its not just the same coat as the mother. It can be the same as the father. What I did when collecting coats was always choose a stallion with a coat I didn't have. Especially the rare colours. When the chances of a coat are only 1% tarpan can be a help. I always tried to use a mare with a rare coat as well if I could. If you use one with the most common colour for the breed you probably will keep getting the same one.

I don't only want rare coats though, I would like to collect them all. I bred a dapple grey connemara mare to a dark bay stallion and got a dapple grey foal.

It is frustrating because I would prefer to breed my horses with the regular % chances of each coat because I won't always be able to find horses to breed from that have coats different than I already have, so I could get stuck getting the same coats over and over.

I just wish I could get rid of Tarpan somehow, but it doesn't seem to be possible.

Thanks

with this ex part of the problem is Dapple grey is the most common coat for Connemara so no matter what you are more likely to get it.

No it is not possible to get rid of him so you have to work with him. Using a dapple connemara to breed is very likely to give you another dapple as it is the most common coat.

When I said rare coats that was only to give examples of where Tarpan is most useful but his perk does not guarantee anything although it does affect all the colours in the same way.. If you look at the Connemara coats the dapple is 15% and dark bay is 9%. Without tarpan there is no genetics involved but the most likely outcome is a dapple grey foal.

With Tarpan there is a higher chance of both dapple and dark bay and therefore less chance of getting the rest of the colours. If you use parents with lower % the outcome for them is better although there is still a high chance you will get dapple grey anyway as it is still, and must stay, the most common.

If you want to collect all the coats you need to bear in mind that just for that one breed there are 4 colours which are at 1% rarity. That means that to get them all you will potentially need to complete 400 breedings. Now I know that is unlikely to have to happen but its surely worth looking at ways to bring the chances up to get the coats that you do want.

Hope that make sense.

Yeah I understand, to follow up on that does anybody know what % likelihood there is that Tarpan gives a foal one of their parents coat? And, is it 50/50 between their mother and father's coat or does Tarpan favour the coat of one parent in particular?

We don't have the exact figure, but Tarpan's advantage only slightly increases the percentage of the parents' coat colour.
So yes, it makes the already high percentages even higher, but it doesn't prevent other coat colours from appearing.

the chance is pretty low. my best suggestion is when trying to get a specific coat make sure you aren't using the most common color in the breed as the color you definitely don't want. which is what happened with the ex you used.

Right thanks everyone. It was unfortunate luck about the dappled mare as she was the only one I had to breed from to start with. It seems to be going relatively well so far but we will see.

Thanks again.