 Bowling's study of equine coat color genetics originally coincided with her studies of animal parentage. Research related to equine coat colors dovetailed with genetic disease research when she studied overo spotting patterns seen in Paint horses. She was part of a research team that studied lethal white syndrome (LWS), a fatal condition in newborn foals. She had authored an early study in 1977 that ruled out neonatal isoerythrolysis as a cause of death. In 1983, the team linked LWS to a coat color spotting pattern, later identified as frame overo, which is seen in the American Paint Horse and related breeds. In 1997 Bowling was one of three researchers to identify the gene responsible for LWS, and in the process identified the condition as the equine version of Hirschsprung disease.
