Chestnut is a recessive gene and it takes 2 chestnut genes to get a chestnut foal. As many breeders know, almost every horse carries at least one chestnut gene, the exception is creams (cremellos, perlinos and smokies). Therefore, if you breed any 2 horses of any common color (black, buckskin, dun, palomino, etc) you have a good chance of both the sire and dam passing on the chestnut gene and getting a chestnut foal.

For example if you breed 2 palominos, you have a 25% chance of getting a chestnut baby. A common misconception is that if a chestnut horse has palominos in his/her background that they will have a better chance of producing palomino babies. Genetically this is just is not true, a chestnut horse cannot pass on the palomino gene, as they do not carry the gene. The cream gene is dominant to chestnut, therefore if a base chestnut horse carries one cream gene, the horse will always be a palomino.

Since every chestnut horse has 2 chestnut genes, if you breed 2 chestnut horses - you will always get a chestnut baby. The foal could possibly have white on it or even be an Overo - but its base color will always be chestnut and it will have non black points.

Palomino horses carry one chestnut gene and one cream gene. A palomino sire and a field full of palomino mares will not breed true. In this case, you should get about half palominos, with the remainder being chestnut and cremellos.

Cremello horses carry no chestnut genes and two cream genes. They are considered a double dilute chestnut. Since cremello horses are homozygous dilute, all offspring of a cremello will carry the dilute or cream gene.

Breeding a cremello to a chestnut, will produce a palomino 100% of the time. Breeding it to a bay will produce either a palomino or a buckskin.