Foal Paperwork: France and Ireland Guide 2026
Foaling
What a breeder must file between covering and the foal's first passport in France (IFCE SIRE) and Ireland (Horse Sport Ireland, Weatherbys). Includes a month-by-month checklist.
Foal coat color calculator
Enter the mare's and stallion's coats: here is the foal's likely adult coat.
Optional, even partly. The coats of the mare's and the stallion's parents clear up part of the uncertainty.
The foal
Bay / Buckskin
13 to 50% of foals each
Possible adult coats
The mare may carry chestnut without showing it.
Yes if this horse has had a chestnut foal or one of its parents is chestnut, palomino or cremello.
The mare may carry black without showing it.
Yes if this horse has had a black foal or one of its parents is black.
The stallion's coat does not tell whether this horse can give a bay foal.
No if both its parents are black.
Is your mare in foal? Follow her pregnancy until foaling with Breedio Tracker, free.
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<a href="https://www.breedio.xyz/en/tools/foal-color-calculator">Foal coat color calculator</a> by Breedio
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</script>Frequently asked questions
- Can you predict a foal's color before birth?
- Yes, as odds. The mare's and the stallion's coats give a first estimate of the foal's color; their parents' coats refine it, and a DNA test of both gives the exact genotype. The final color is confirmed at birth, and later for a grey foal that lightens with age.
- Does the calculator give the coat at birth or as an adult?
- The adult coat, the one on the papers. A grey foal is born another color and turns grey over a few years: the calculator gives it as grey and says its birth color.
- Can two chestnuts have a bay foal?
- No. A chestnut is e/e and only passes on e: two chestnuts always have a chestnut-based foal. If a bay is born, one parent is not chestnut (a coat misrecorded on the papers, or a grey born another color).
- How do you get a palomino foal?
- It takes one cream gene on a chestnut base. A palomino crossed with a chestnut gives a palomino half of the time; a cremello crossed with a chestnut gives a palomino every time.
- Can two frame overo horses be bred together?
- It is not advised. On average one foal in four gets the frame gene from both parents: it is born white and dies within days (OLWS). A horse can carry the gene with very little visible white: an OLWS test of both parents settles it.
- Why does the calculator give a range?
- Because a coat does not show everything: a bay can carry chestnut, a chestnut hides its agouti gene, a grey can have one or two copies of the gene. The range covers every genotype that fits what you entered.
- Does the calculator replace a DNA test?
- No. It works out what the horses' coats and their parents' coats allow. A laboratory DNA test gives the exact genotype and makes the result certain.
- I know my mare or stallion better, how do I enter it?
- Open the mare or the stallion, then "Know more?". Answer the questions you know (carries chestnut, always passes on grey...) from its foals, its parents or a DNA test: the result sharpens with each answer.
- Which genes are covered?
- Extension, Agouti, cream, champagne, silver, dun, grey, roan, tobiano and frame overo. Roan and tobiano sit on the same chromosome and are computed as independent. Brown (At), pearl, sabino, splash, leopard and white markings are not covered yet.
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