These are unique colors that are seen in a variety of different breeds. They are very bright colors.
Cremello
Cremello carries two genes for cream dilution and two genes for red. Technically, a cremello is a double diluted sorrel or chestnut. These horses are genetically chestnut or chestnut. A cremello will not have any black genes. The foal usually receives a cream dilution gene from a parent who is palomino, buckskin, cremello, or perlino. A father can also be brown or black but has passed the dilution of the cream. Crossing two cremellos will always produce cremello. Cremellos crossed with chestnut or sorrel will produce palomino. A bay-crossed cremello should produce buckskin, assuming the bay runs through the black dots. You can never produce a bay, sorrel or chestnut if you cross a cremello.
perlino
Perlino also carries two cream dilution genes. These are inherited from a palomino or ante parent. Perlino must have one black gene and two cream dilution genes. Crossing two pearls will produce a pearl. Crossing a perlino with a cremello will produce perlino or cremello every time. Perlino crossed with sorrel or chestnut will produce palomino or buckskin. Perlinos crossed with bays produce buckskin about seventy-five percent of the time. If neither parent passed on the black gene, the foal will be palomino. Perlino crossed with any other color will produce a diluted cream color every time. The foal will not necessarily be diluted twice, because the perlino can only pass on one cream gene. Crossing a perlino with a bay, sorrel, or chestnut will never produce those colors.
brown
To obtain a dun of any color, one of the foal’s parents must pass on a dun dilution gene. The father can be brown, red brown or grullo. The base of the red brown is sorrel or chestnut. The red brown will never have black spots. The dun gene produces the dorsal stripe and zebra-striped legs. Hint: Just because a horse has a dorsal stripe does not mean it is brown. A dun should also have zebra-striped legs. Buckskin is not a dun. However, a palomino can have zebra stripes and a dorsal stripe if the brown dilution gene is passed on. A red dun has two dun dilution genes. The brown can also express the roan gene.
crane
A grullo is produced as an effect of the dun gene on a black base. The crane does not carry the agouti gene. Some Grullo will carry the cream dilution gene in addition to the dun dilution gene. A grullo can produce both a dun and a cream dilution foal. So, they can produce palomino or buckskin. The cream gene can often hide in the grullo as it does in the bay and black. A crane will pass on the dun gene every time, regardless of the color of the other parent. It is also possible that a crane carries the roan gene.
Roan
The roan gene is inherited from at least one parent. The roan gene is not associated with any other base color. The gene simply affects the genes that the horse has. For example, a red roan is a sorrel or chestnut that expresses the roan gene. A bay roan is a bay expressing the roan gene and a blue roan is a black expressing the roan gene. A roan has white hairs scattered throughout the undercoat. The basic colors are normally inherited, but the foal must receive the roan gene from at least one parent.
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