Nice catch! It's hard to tell with these things if it's a coincidence or an intentional reference. MLP characters are mainly tied to what's pictured on their flank and their color scheme, and since there is a limited number of color schemes and symbols that can be used, some will always be repeated.
In this case I'd guess it's a coincidence, since the G4 toyline doesn't seem to reference anything G1 (outside of what Lauren Faust put into the mane six). There's plenty of G4 versions of G3 ponies though. And I like to think that a lot ponies in G3 were tributes to G1 ponies in name and look (even if no one looked exactly the same as their G1 counterpart).
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