>The hypo trait appears to lessen the black pigment and restrict the placement of the pigment (ie smaller saddles). If one "gene" or trait for this is recieved, the modification will always be "seen" or phenotypic. It can't be hidden. That's why hypo is referred to as "co-dominant".

Sorry. That is why hypo is not referred to as a "recessive". In the broad sense, any mutant gene that is not a recessive mutant could be classed as a dominant mutant. But this does not explain why salmon (hypo) is better classed as a dominant mutant than as a codominant mutant.

>A hypo will look like a hypo, or else it is not a hypo. It's either there, or it's not. But the trait is not necessarily "Dominant" over another trait. Like Normal is dominant over albino. It's just a modifier.

Using "modifier" in this sense, albino is just a modifier, too. Albino modifies the color so that there is no black there.

When I took genetics, "modifier" was a mutant gene that modified the phenotype produced by another mutant gene and could not be detected otherwise. If smutty in horses can be detected by its effect on the palomino phenotype and can't be detected in a wild type horse (bay, I believe), then smutty would be a modifier.

Paul Hollander

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