To: Dave, Paul, Arnon,
Thanx for all your help on this TEXTBOX-colors thing:
My APP is horses actually, Stallions are Blue, Mares are
Red, Historically outstanding Stallions are called
Chef de Race - Yellow.
The APP displays a horse and it's parents.
A horse can be a Stallion, a Mare, or a Chef de Race, Blue,
Red, or Yellow.
Dad can be Blue or Yellow, Mom can only be Red (the Horse
racing industry is very male chauvinistic - never
recognizing outstanding female runners).

Correcting the "thisform" path clause did the trick:
My form class has:
txtName.forecolor=iif(names.gender='DAM',255,iif(names.gender='SIRE',16711680,65535))
txtSire.forecolor=iif(sires.chef='N',16711680,65535)
txtDam.forecolor=255

And all my commandbutton click procedures have:
thisform.txtName.forecolor=iif(names.gender='DAM',255,iif(names.gender='SIRE',16711680,65535))
thisform.txtSire.forecolor=iif(sires.chef='N',16711680,65535)
thisform.txtDam.forecolor=255
thisform.Refresh

and THERE BE COLORS HERE! Thanx guys...
John