"That's a Juaquin-bred horse, I can tell by the spots."
by Mary P. Hare
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"I can tell he's a red top horse because he has a red foretop."
Red Tops had a completely unique type of spotting, where dark spots would roan in to have white halos, and the body would eventually become specky-dark in the front with a white blanket. The spots in the blanket would not have the halos as did the frontal spots. The spotting, with halos, did not usually develop until their second year."
"That's a Juaquin-bred horse, I can tell by the spots."
An excellent example of a modem-day "Red Top" is PRINCE PLAUDIT. In addition to the white halos around the spots after the frontal section has specked in, another strong inherent trait is the blazes, and the red foretop that never seems to change to lighter. Red Tops, in their most pure form, also do not appear to have a "roaning out" gene - they have a "roaning in" gene instead! Noted that a large number of offspring from this Juaquin breeding never change color if they are born solid, as if to indicate the lack of the natural Appaloosa roaning factor.
In doing research for the Starbuck Leopard, Sundance and related lines, it was the general consensus that the Juaquin-type of spotting was an entirely different strain.
Arlin Davidson, Sandy, Utah. states: I consider the Juaquin group to be different than the Starbuck Leopard group. The Juaquin are a branch of the old "Red Tops" that originally came out of the Kanab, Utah region. However, they have inter-mixed in the last 50 years. Old grandpa Brown, a nephew of Brigham Young colonized in four states during his lifetime and he distributed these horses wherever he went - Arizona, Wyoming, Idaho and Montana. I was never interested in these Red Tops. They were not fast enough. They just were not full of fire. They were more for dudes. But they did make fine pick-up horses, used to retrieve riders in bucking events at fairs and rodeos. Red Tops were just natural pick-up horses. They were always seen in that line of work.
I have never had the time to research the "Red Tops" further. Some of the Sundance horses can have this roaning in with white halos, but inter-mixing of lines could account for this. Another strong-blazed line that puts blazes on leopards is the Absarokee line when crossed to a non-blaze leopard. Absarokee Sunset, sired by Flamingo of AA, traces to the Montana leopard lines, too!