Patterns
Base colors are overlain by various spotting patterns, which are variable and often do not fit neatly into a specific category. These patterns are described as follows:
| Pattern | Description | Image |
| Blanket or snowcap |
A solid white area normally over, but not limited to, the hip area with a contrasting base color. | |
| Spots | general term that refers to a horse which has white or dark spots over all or a portion of its body. | |
| Blanket with spots | a white blanket which has dark spots within the white. The spots are usually the same color as the horse's base color. | |
| Leopard | Considered an extension of a blanket to cover the whole body. A white horse with dark spots that flow out over the entire body. | |
| Few Spot Leopard | A mostly white horse with a bit of color remaining around the flank, neck and head. | |
| Snowflake | A horse with white spots, flecks, on a dark body. Typically the white spots increase in number and size as the horse ages. | |
| Appaloosa Roan, Varnish roan or Marble |
A distinct version of the leopard complex. Intermixed dark and light hairs with lighter colored area on the forehead, jowls and frontal bones of the face, over the back, loin and hips. Darker areas may appear along the edges of the frontal bones of the face as well and also on the legs, stifle, above the eye, point of the hip and behind the elbow. The dark points over bony areas are called "varnish marks" and distinguish this pattern from a traditional roan. | |
| Mottled | A fewspot leopard that is completely white with only mottled skin showing. | |
| Roan Blanket or Frost |
Horses with roaning over the croup and hips. The blanket normally occurs over, but is not limited to, the hip area. | |
| Roan Blanket With Spots | refers to a horse with a roan blanket which has white and/or dark spots within the roan area. |
Read more about this topic: Leopard Complex
Famous quotes containing the word patterns:
“Phenomenal nature shadows him wherever he goes. Clouds in the staring sky transmit to one another, by means of slow signs, incredibly detailed information regarding him. His inmost thoughts are discussed at nightfall, in manual alphabet, by darkly gesticulating trees. Pebbles or stains or sunflecks form patterns representing in some awful way messages which he must intercept. Everything is a cipher and of everything he is the theme.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“One can describe a landscape in many different words and sentences, but one would not normally cut up a picture of a landscape and rearrange it in different patterns in order to describe it in different ways. Because a photograph is not composed of discrete units strung out in a linear row of meaningful pieces, we do not understand it by looking at one element after another in a set sequence. The photograph is understood in one act of seeing; it is perceived in a gestalt.”
—Joshua Meyrowitz, U.S. educator, media critic. “The Blurring of Public and Private Behaviors,” No Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behavior, Oxford University Press (1985)