Horse Trivia

Horses have a diverse range of color characteristics.

Let's take the Thoroughbred breed as an example; it is a typical breed of horse and they have eight coat colors;
Bay / Dark Bay / Brown / Black / Chestnut / Dark Chestnut / Gray / White
and in addition, a few major variations;
Buckskin / Palomino / Roan / Cremello / Pinto
are also popular.

・ Coat - short hair around the body
・ Horsehair - long, coarse hair growing on the bangs, manes, tails of horses.
・ Base colour - Colour of the body.

The body color is a mixture of darkish-brown to reddish-brown, but horsehair such as mere and tail and lower legs are black.

The most significant difference between bay horses and chestnut horses is this black hair; chestnut would not have any black hair at all.

Regardless the livestock horse or the wiled horse, bay is one of the most common coat colors in horse breeds.

Similar to bay but it refers to a darker reddish-brown horse.

The dark shade will vary depending on individual horses, occasionally it is difficult to distinguish from brown or black horses.

Usually, its hair is lighter hair around eyes, elbow, lower side of the stomach and inside of the legs and regardless its coat color, but with black points (points refer to mere, tail and lower legs)

Brown is even darker than dark bay, looks almost black.

You can find slightly lighter hair around their muzzle, eyes, elbow and flanks.

It could be difficult to differentiate brown from black.

Black is completely black including its coat and horsehair.

You must carefully observe its fine hairs around the eyes and muzzle; on a true black these hairs are black.

It is relatively uncommon colour for the race horses such as the Thoroughbred.

Horses with a yellowish, tanned coat colour.

Horsehair might be darker to paler than its coat colour.

Unlike a bay horse, here is no black at all on their horsehair.

Chestnut is another most common equine coat colours.

A horse with the lightest coat colour in chestnut family is also called flaxen chestnut.

Dark chestnut and chestnut are very similar but dark chestnut is darker.

Its coat colour is dark tanned yellow or reddish brown, and has the same color across its body.

However, color of its horsehair can variety from light to dark.

Same as Chestnut, there is no black on their lower legs.

A horse with greyish white coat colour.

Its base colour could be Chestnuts (includes dark chestnuts), bay (includes dark bay, Brown) or black but it has cream coat colour.

A Gray horse can be born grey or black, often the same colour as its mother, and the colour would be lighten as it was getting older.

The speed of turning into white may vary, some may develop a white quickly and others may keep its base colour.

As it will develop a different coat color over the years, it may not easy to realise if it was a gray when it was first born. (Around its eyes should be white though.)

A white is the whitest coat colour.

Different from gray, a white horse was already white when it was born.

Their coat colour is almost completely white and its skin underneath is pink.

Some might have slightly coloured patterns and horsehair, and blue eyes.

White foals can be born from the white parents but this gene is very rare.

Also occasionally a white foal may be born as a rare mutation from parent horses with no white hair gene.

A horse with cream or light goldish coat.

It is a common coat colour for Hokkaido Washu (Dosanko) or Quarter Horse, with 'black points' and it may have a dark line on their back called 'dorsal band'.

A palomino horse is chestnut or dark chestnut coloured horse with yellowy brown or cream coat.

Its horsehair might range from as same as its coat color to almost white.

Palomino is brighter than chestnut but darker than cremello.

Common in Hokkaido Washu (Dosanko) and Quarter Horse and an American riding horse called Palomino is also in this coat colour group.

A roan horse looks greyish because the white coat colour intermixed within the horse's base colour.

Often confused with gray but they are different from each other; a roan horse usually remains the same colour in their lifetimes and also it has white marks only in the limited area.

Similar to Buckskin, it is common in Hokkaido Washu (Dosanko),

A horse with a ivory coat and horsehair with pink skin and mucosa.

Alsoit has navy coloured iris.

Some cremello may look similar to a white horse.

It is a very rare coat colour for any breeds,

in old Japan, a horse with this hair color was considered to be a good omen and dedicated to the Shinto shrines as a 'horse for god'.

It is most likely to be found in Quarter Horse bloodline. Within Japanese native breeds, you might be able to find it in Hokkaido Washu (Dosanko).

A horse with large white patches across the body.

Variations of pinto color patterning include: piebald, Skewbald, Overo, Sabino, Tabiano and Tovero.

Pinto could appear in any breeds but particularly common within ponies and paint horses.