What Color Is The Horse?

2023 Author: Molly Page | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-11-27 22:49

Before the widespread introduction of various machines into the life of people, the horse played a huge role in the history of the peoples inhabiting Russia. Until the middle of the XIX century. horse breeding was one of the most important industries in the Russian economy. Today, a city dweller can only see a horse at the hippodrome or riding tourists and children during city holidays. The terms associated with the horse, once known to many, have also begun to be forgotten. Now, few people are able to answer a question that seemed simple a century ago: what color is a brown horse?

Friesian horse, black suit

Let's try to restore this gap together and remember what color horses are.

White suit. Horses of white color have white skin and white coat. Dominant white (white) horses have dark brown or dark blue eyes.

Red suit. Protective and integumentary hair are red (shades of red can be different: from golden-red to red-chocolate, almost black), skin and hooves are dark.

Playful suit. The top coat is red, the mane and tail are completely white (there may be a slight admixture of red hair at the base of the tail).

Red-haired suit with bleached protective hair. It looks like a playful one, but in the mane and tail, in addition to white wool, there is a large amount of red hair.

Connemara Pony, or Connemara, Bucky Suit

Red with zonal darkening suit. It looks like a redhead, but some parts of the horse's body are dark or black.

Narynj suit. This is what the people call a red horse with black mane and tail.

Nightingale suit. The horse is milky yellow with a white mane and tail.

Nightingale with zonal darkening suit. Like a nightingale, but some areas of the body are darker or black.

Dark nighting suit. The body is yellow-brown with the old mane and tail.

Isabella suit. A light cream-colored horse with a slightly pinkish tint. Isabella horses always have blue eyes!

Perlino. This is sometimes called the isabella suit with a dark mane and tail.

Ash-black suit. The chocolate shade of the top coat, the protective hair and the lower part of the legs are black, the eyes are amber yellow, sometimes blue.

Trakehner horse, chestnut color

Ash-karak suit. Like karak, but the body color is chocolate.

Buck suit. It is characterized by light yellow, ocher color, body, legs partially or entirely black. The mane and tail are also black. Sometimes bucks are of a red-yellow hue. White strands in the mane at the withers and the head a little lighter than the body will help to distinguish from a light chestnut one - typical differences between a bullock and a chestnut one.

Bucky suit with zonal darkening. Like the buck, but in some parts of the body there is a large admixture of black wool (on the withers, back, rump, etc.), often an apple pattern.

Light dun color. Pale yellow body shade, black mane and tail. Legs black up to fetlock or hock (on the hind leg, on the foreleg up to the wrist).

Brown suit. The horses are dark chocolate colored. The shade is evenly distributed throughout the body, only the legs are slightly lighter (a typical sign of red stripes is light legs).

Black suit. A very ancient color of horses. The color is brilliant black.

Black in tan. Sometimes black horses can fade in the summer sun, and both protective hair and integumentary hair can fade. The black color fades to dark brown, brown, but the muzzle and lower legs always remain black.

Bay suit. It is characterized by a brown or reddish-brown color of the body, black legs, mane and tail. The word "bay" in the Old Church Slavonic language means "smoke", "chad". Usually the word "bay" denotes the color of a horse with a strong smoking flame. But there are also light-bay ones, somewhat reminiscent of duns. There are especially dark-bay ones, which in their color are very similar to blacks in a sunburn, but there is a difference: a dark-bay muzzle will be red near the nostrils, and a black one in a sunburn - black.

Karak suit. The horse is completely black in color with small reddish tan markings near the eyes, nostrils, groin and under the elbows.

Barbary horse, red color

"Wild" bay color. In appearance, the usual chestnut color, but the dark hair on the legs reaches only to the fetlock.

Gray suit. Some horses turn gray over time, foals that are destined to be gray are born to look brown or black. The gray horse has black skin and dark hooves (if without white markings), white and black hair is scattered over the body. Sometimes the hair is only white (in light gray), but it is the black skin that distinguishes it from white.

Light gray suit. There may be a slight admixture of dark hair on the body, but the rest of the hair, mane and tail are white.

Dark gray suit. In fact - a gray black, the horse looks black, but the head is lighter, there may be an admixture of white hair on the body, legs, mane and tail.

Red and gray suit. It is gray based on bay or ginger. On the body, red (red) hair is mixed with white, the horse may appear pink.

Gray buckwheat suit. It is light gray, on which small specks (the size of buckwheat) of a dark color are scattered. If the specks are black, then such a horse is sometimes called gray to black buckwheat, if red - gray to red buckwheat.

Suit gray in apples. A black horse turns gray so that white spots (the size of an apple) with blurred edges are formed on its body. There is a small distance between the apples, it looks like a dark mesh from the side. The apple pattern can be scattered all over the horse's body, as well as in some parts of the body, most often on the rump.

Roan suit. Coloring is a uniform blotch of white hair on the body of red, black, chestnut and other stripes. The head and legs are colored in the main suit. The horse looks like it has been sprinkled with flour on top.

Chubara suit. This is the name for spotted horses. Chubaraya is a general name for a group of spotted suits that are genetically similar and in some traits of all chubar stripes: striped hooves, speckled skin, white sclera of the eye (visible white), white blurred spots on the inside of the leg (pseudo markings), glossy markings (dark slightly elongated spots along the cheek, on the neck, at the elbows and on the thigh). Although they are signs of forelock, a horse of any color can have it.

Lipizzan horse, gray dappled

There are the following sweeps:

Chubary leopard. The horse is completely white, dark spots are scattered on the body (depending on the basis of the suit of a particular horse, there can be black-forelock, bay-forelock, red-forelock, brown-forelock, etc.).

Chubaraya low-spotted. The horse is also white, but there are very few specks on the body.

Black-backed. It looks like a horse of any basic color, but the croup is completely white (“saddle cloth”) and has dark specks of the basic color on it.

Whitish. Any base, but the "saddle cloth" is completely white.

In "frost". Small white specks resembling frost are scattered on the rump. If the specks are located too close, then they merge into one small spot, this color is called "frosty saddle cloth".

In "snow flakes". On any dark base, white spots are scattered. Such a scam is extremely rare.

Marble. On the rump, the hair of the main and white colors is evenly scattered. The horse resembles a roan by itself, but in contrast to it, the marbled white hair is scattered only in the "saddle-cloth" and there are signs of forelock.

Drozdovaya. Dark specks are scattered on the white horse. It resembles a gray color of buckwheat, but the blackbird sometimes has larger spots and always speckled skin. Quite a rare suit.

Speckled. Looks like any dark color (bay, black, brown), there are no spots on the coat. But these horses have speckled skin, striped hooves and white sclera of the eye. Very rare.

Glossy roan. Contrary to the name, genetically this suit has nothing to do with roan, only phenotypically (externally). Looks like a roan, but there are glossy markings, always speckled skin and other signs of forelock.

Swiss warm-blooded horse, nighting color

Piebald suit. On any suit there are large irregular white spots (pezhins).

The following types of piebald are distinguished:

Tobiano. White pezhins are arranged in a certain symmetry. Pezhins are present on the neck, encircling it, one or both sides are spotted, legs are light. Tobiano's mane and tail are usually two-colored.

Sabino. The legs are almost completely white, with a patch on the abdomen and / or lower part of the neck. The spots have blurred edges, and there may also be an admixture of white hair all over the body. Sometimes with sabino the horse is almost completely white, but the ears, the back of the head remain dark and spots in the groin.

Frame over. "Frame" is translated from English as "frame", and it is not surprising. White pezhina seems to be surrounded by dark wool, like a frame. Usually the pezhina does not go over the head and never crosses the spine.

Splashed white. The horse looks like it has run over a puddle of white paint. Usually the horse underneath is completely white, but unlike the sabino, the spots have well-defined edges.

Manchado. Uneven pezhiny with serrated edges run from top to bottom, usually from the neck, withers. On white pezhina there may be spots of the main color. Manchado, as a rule, does not go on the head.

Tovero. Mixed type of piebald, more precisely, tobiano and any kind of overro (sabino, frame, etc.).

Savrasa suit (bay + Dun gene). Sandy-red shade of the top coat, dark mane and tail. On the legs there are zebra-like markings (transverse stripes), a well-defined black belt along the back, sometimes stripes on the withers, a dark muzzle and white strands in the mane.

Norwegian fjord, savras color

Muscular suit (black-gray), gray-bluish protective hair, mane, tail, legs - black, belt along the back and zebra stripes on the legs, admixture of light hair in the mane.

Cauray suit (reddish-savrasa). Pale reddish shade of top coat, dark reddish belt along the back and zebra stripes on the legs. The legs are pale yellow, the mane and tail are red.

Mukhortaya suit (karakovo-savrasaya). Dark ocher with a gray tint, the color of the top coat, mane, tail, legs, belt along the back, stripes on the legs, muzzle and sometimes withers are black.

There are also other combinations of wild colors: bulano-savrasai, isabella-savrasai, nighting-savrasai, etc.

Article on the topic Suit, marks and signs of horses

Silver suits

There are several of them, and the following signs are inherent in them: marbling on the legs, ashy strands at the base of the mane and tail, blurred gray vertical stripes on the hooves (not always), white eyelashes (not always), light corolla. The silver gene lightens only the black pigment, therefore , the following suits are distinguished:

Silver-bay suit. Bay with light ash mane and tail and ash legs.

Silver-black suit. The color of the top coat is black or chocolate, the lower part of the legs is slightly lighter (but not always), the mane and tail are light ash or dark, almost chocolate ash.

Silver-karak suit. Like karak, but the mane and tail are light ash or dark ash, marble legs.

Silvery cork suit. Like a buck, but the mane and tail are ashy, the legs are marble.

Suit, silvery in apples. Dark blue-gray or chocolate shade of top coat and apples all over the body, mane, tail and legs are marbled.

Australian pony, mousy suit

Champagne suits. There are several offcuts, but they all have common signs of champagne horses: specks on the skin on the muzzle, genitals, around the eyes; amber eyes; shine of wool; returnable apples, but not always (returnable apples are the opposite of the usual, i.e. dark on a light background). Champagne horses are currently only found in the United States.

The following marks are distinguished:

Classic champagne suit (black-champagne). Yellowish-burnt or chocolate-ash color of the body, sometimes with a purple tint. The legs, mane and tail are dark, the eyes are amber.

Amber champagne suit (bay champagne). The color of the body is golden-red, amber. The legs, mane and tail are brown, the eyes are amber.

Sable champagne suit (caracau-champagne or dark chestnut-champagne). Outwardly, it looks like classic champagne, they differ only genetically.

Gold or gold champagne suit (red & champagne). Golden-red, golden or golden-whitish hue of the body. The mane is white or pale red. Outwardly, it resembles a nighting suit, but it is the pink-speckled skin that distinguishes the golden color (the salty skin is dark).

American Quarter Roan

Champagne suits of the ivory group (cream champagne). They have a pale cream-colored body. All suits of the ivory group have slight differences from each other.

Pearl suits. Such colors are found only in horses of the Quarter Horse, Paint Horse, Peruvian Paso, Andalusian, Lusitano and Tinker breeds. Distinctive features of pearl colors: lilac skin, lighter coat and eyes than ordinary horses.

There are the following sweeps:

Bay-pearl suit and karak-pearl suit. The body is milky-caramel, the mane, tail and legs are noticeably darker, the skin is purple, the eyes are amber.

Crow-pearl suit. The body is light caramel or milk chocolate, the protective hair and the lower legs are slightly darker.

Apricot or reddish-pearl color. The body of such horses really resembles an apricot in color. The hooves are light. The skin is pink. The protective hair is often of the same color as the cover hair, although it can be lightened. The skin darkens over the years from pink to lilac, speckled. Specks can also increase in number over the years.

There are other combinations, for example: brine-pearl, bulano-pearl, etc. But, when it is impossible to determine the base in a pearl horse, then it is called pseudo-isabella.

Pastel color. The pastel color is a light beige with a grayish tinge, the color of the body and protective hair, changing with age to a dark sepia color. So far, this color has only been identified in Shetland ponies.

Author: Elena Golovach