Colours

Horses and ponies come in all sorts of wonderful colours.  Often people have a colour they like the most, I have never owned a grey horse and although I think they are beautiful they are a lot more work to keep clean!

To define the colour of a horse there are a few things to take into consideration; their skin pigmentation, hair colour and body markings.

A true black horse.

A bay horse is brown with black points.  This means that they have a black mane, tail, legs from the hoof to the knee/hock and black tips to their ears.  The bay coat can vary from very bright to a much darker brown, the key is the black points.

 

A brown horse, is a brown horse without black points.

A chestnut horse is a reddish colour which can vary from a bright colour...

to a liver chestnut.....

sometimes chestnut horses have 'flaxen' manes and tails.

 

Grey horses (horses are not white) also come in different varieties!  

Dapple grey ...

Flea -bitten grey ....

and iron grey ..

Albino horses are quite rare.  This is when the skin has no pigmentation, the horse looks pinkish-white and they have pink eyes and muzzle.

Palomino horses are a golden colour which varies from light to dark, they have white manes and tails.

Cream horses have pink skin, their manes and tails are often silver and they sometimes have blue eyes.

  

Piebald horses have irregular patches of black and white.

  

Skewbald horses have irregular patches of brown and white.

Multi-coloured horse have more than 2 colours, which are usually black, brown and white.

Spotted horses, this includes the North American Appaloosas. There are several basic patterns:

Leopard has spots of any colour on a light coat.

 

Blanket has spots on the back and hindquarters only.

'Snowflake' or 'Frosted' have white spots on a dark coat.

Marble is a mottled colour.

Roan horses come in 3 colourways:

Blue roan is a mixture of black-brown and white hair that gives a bluish appearance, they have black mane, tails and legs.

A Strawberry roan is a mixture of chestnut and white hair.

A Bay roan is brown hair with white.

A Dun horse is a mousy colour and these also can vary from light to dark.  Most will have black points and a dark dorsal stripe (line down their spine) and some have zebra markings on their legs.

Do you have a favourite colour?  What would your dream horse look like?

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Until next time!

Jo