Double Cream Champagne

by Carolyn Shepard 

Legacy’s Frontier Gold

The ICHR has (as of this writing) documented two double cream champagnes.

The first one is Legacy’s Frontier Gold, a gold double cream (cremello champagne) Tennessee Walking Horse stallion owned by Edna Edwards of Utah, and bred by Jon Brickwood of Ontario, Canada. (His photos are on the left.)

<= He has been tested by two different labs, and has two cream genes on a red base. His sire is a gold cream champagne, and his dam is buckskin. He had a star apparent at birth as his only white marking. He has produced a classic cream foal out of a bay mare, demonstrating he also carries champagne.

The second cremello champagne (gold double cream) is Wind D.’s Thunder, another Tennessee Walking Horse stallion. He is owned by Leroy Summers, and was bred by Renee Woodward, both of whom are from Kentucky. (His photos are on the right.) This horse has a gold cream sire, and a cremello dam. He also had a recognizable star at birth. He has tested with two cream genes, and has produced a gold cream filly from a sorrel mare.

Wind D.’s Thunder

The skin photos on these horses are nearly identical. The owners of both stallions state that the horses look "just like" cremellos. I discussed the photos with Wendy Bockman of the CPEA (www.doubledilute.com) and her feeling was the same as mine - that the skin on these double cream champagnes appears "pinker" than ordinary cremello skin. Both horses have clear, pink skin, without the pale mottling or freckling common on double cream dilutes.

There is no evidence of champagne on the skin, other than the apparent "triple dilution" to what looks like pinto-pink skin. If these are representative examples of double cream with champagne, then we can safely say that champagne is not visible on cremello, but may additionally dilute the skin to pinto-like pinkness.
(We had not, at the time this article was written, yet documented champagne on a perlino, smoky cream, or brown double cream.)

The foal on the left is sired by Legacy’s Frontier Gold, out of a bay mare. The filly on the right is sired by Wind D’s Thunder, and out of a chestnut mare. Both are unambiguous champagne creams.

Added by Nicole MacPherson:

Stop the presses! Muzzle photos of both stallions are now available, and Wind D’s Thunder may actually have small pigmented spots around his nostrils. Non-champagne cremello horses are known to have these, but he does not show these spots around his eyes/under his tail as cremellos do.

Since these two stallions and one newborn miniature filly are currently the only verified double cream champagnes, we are unable to ascertain which is closer to being "typical" for this particular genetic combination. However, since Wind D’s Thunder doesn’t display any manner of small spots in any other area, it seems more likely that Legacy’s Frontier Gold is the more typical double cream champagne.