Coat colors in Legacy are based on real life genetics, both known and unknown. For the known genetics, these are the 7 genes that make up a horse's primary coat color, all of which have tests available in real life, and in the game. In real life though, horse coat color has a lot of variation than can't be explained by just those 7 genes. For example, you might have two bay horses, but one is a lighter shade and more yellowy, while the other is darker and has red undertones. We don't know what causes this variation, yet, but we have added an additional 21 genes to Legacy to try to simulate real life as much as possible!
What are these additional genes and what do they control? Well, I'm afraid we aren't going to tell you in our Wiki. Just like in real life, these genes aren't testable, and we want you to have all the fun of discovering them yourselves.
Below is a basic guide to the 7 testable genes and what colors they produce. This guide will be light on explanation, and more of a 'walkthrough.' If you aren't familiar with genetics terminology, we recommend you read our Genetics section of the Wiki first.
A horse's coat color can be worked out through a step-by-step process of first determining their ‘base’ color, then adding on dilutions. So, to start, let's look at the 2 genes that control base coat color.
Three coat colors are often thought of as ‘bases’ to all other coat colors. These three colors are: chestnut, black or bay. Chestnut vs. black are controlled by 1 gene, known as ‘Extension’, while bay is controlled by a 2nd gene IF the horse is black at the Extension gene.
Extension has 2 alleles, E and e, with E being completely dominant to e. This gene alone will make a horse black or chestnut. To get either color, your horse would need to be:
Black: E/-*
Chestnut: e/e
*= The - will indicate that the other allele does not matter throughout this guide. The second allele won't matter when the first allele is completely dominant to other alleles at that locus.
Agouti has 2 alleles, A and a, with A being completely dominant to a. This gene only affects horses who are black (E/-) at the Extension locus. So, if your horse is e/e chestnut, you can skip this gene because it won't affect your horse's coat color.
Agouti can make a black horse into a bay, if they have the right genotype. To determine if your horse is black or bay, they would need to be:
Black: a/a
Bay: A/-
So, now that you have determined your horse's base color, you can move on to checking their dilutions and whether or not they will turn gray.
This gene is a little more complicated because it has 3** alleles, n, Cr, and prl. Cr shows incomplete dominance to the other alleles, while prl is recessive. Since there are 3 alleles, Cream can produce a lot of different coat colors.
First, the basic rules:
A n/n horse has no dilution from this gene.
Cr/n produces a ‘single dilute’ cream.
Cr/Cr produces a ‘double dilute’ cream.
n/prl produces no dilution.
prl/prl produces a pearl horse.
Cr/prl produces a ‘false double dilute'. They look just like double dilute creams, but they are called false double dilutes since they don't have double Cr.
Here is a table to further detail what base colors and Cream genotypes make what coat colors:
| n/n or n/prl | Cr/n | Cr/Cr | prl/prl | Cr/prl | |
| Chestnut | Chestnut | Palomino | Cremello | Chestnut Pearl | False Cremello |
| Black | Black | Smoky black | Smoky Cream | Black Pearl | False Smoky Cream |
| Bay | Bay | Buckskin | Perlino | Bay Pearl | False Perlino |
** In Legacy, Cream has 3 alleles. In real life, 2 other alleles have been identified, but they appear to produce coat colors identical to pearl, so we have excluded them from the game.
Dun has 2 alleles***, n and D, with D being completely dominant to n.
Dun: D/-
Not dun: n/n
***This gene actually has one more allele in real life. It produces horses without the dun body dilution, but they may have primitive markings (dorsal strip, leg stripes). We did not include this allele in Legacy.
Silver has 2 alleles, n and Z, with Z being completely dominant to n. This gene is a little more complicated than some though, because it is only expressed on black or bay-based horses. Here is a table to help you out:
| n/n | Z/n | |
| Chestnut | Chestnut | Chestnut |
| Black | Black | Silver Black |
| Bay | Bay | Silver Bay |
Champagne has 2 alleles, n and Ch, with Ch being completely dominant to n.
Champagne: Ch/-
Not champagne: n/n
Champagne coat colors have strange names, so we made a little table for that too:
| Ch/n | |
| Chestnut | Gold Champagne |
| Black | Classic Champagne |
| Bay | Amber Champagne |
Then their coat color is probably even more diluted than a single dilute horse! With the exception of silver on a chestnut base, the dilution genes will synergistically make a horse more pale. Not sure what your horse's color is called? Just add the names of their single dilutions together!
One more gene is testable, and that is gray. Gray causes a horse's color to fade to gray with time. This will override every other gene mentioned above. So, if your horse has gray, their coat color would be called gray, but you could also say they are a ‘bay going gray’ or a ‘palomino going gray’, depending on what color their other genes say they are.
This gene has 2 alleles, n and G.
Gray: G/-
Not gray: n/n
Seal brown is often thought of as a 4th base color, but the genetics of seal brown are unknown. We have included seal brown in Legacy, but we can't tell you about the gene that causes it! Just know that the horse must be genetically bay (E/- and A/-) in order to become seal brown. This means that the dilutions affect seal brown similar to how they affect bay.