Finnhorse - Breed Characteristics - Colours

Colours

Over 90 percent of Finnhorses today are chestnut. Flaxen manes and tails as well as white markings on the face and legs are common in the breed. As of 2007, only a minority of Finnhorses are any color other than chestnut: 6 percent are bay and 1.2 percent black. Roans, palominos, buckskins and silver dapples exist in smaller numbers. The genes for other cream dilutions and rabicano are present in the gene pool. A distinctive sabino, non-SB1 pattern is moderately common, but is usually minimally expressed due to the selective colour breeding of the 20th century. A single white horse, registered as pinto and deemed "sabino-white," has been recorded in the modern history of the breed. The number of non-chestnuts is increasing due to dedicated breeding for other colours, and as of 2009, a few dozen black and grey Finnhorses exist.

Through the 18th and 19th centuries, chestnut in various shades was the prevailing colour of Finnish horses, making up about 40-50 percent of the breed, and bays, blacks and greys existed in much greater numbers than today: 34 percent were bay, 16 percent black, and the remaining 3 percent were grey, palomino or spotted. Wide blazes and high leg markings were rare, unlike today; bold markings became common only in the 20th century.

The change came about through selective breeding. At the turn of the 20th century, when a nationalistic spirit was high, the Finnhorse began to be considered a symbol of Finland, and purebreeding became very popular. In addition, chestnut colour was officially chosen as an official aim for breeding as the "utmost original" colour of the Finnhorse, and named the "Hippos colour" after Hevoskasvatusyhditys Hippos, the name of the recently founded Finnish national horse breeding association that is now Suomen Hippos. Any colours other than chestnut were considered evidence of "foreign" blood, and the goal was to make the Finnhorse an all-chestnut breed. The breeding regulation of 1909 stated that no stallion "with coat of white, grey, palomino or spotted" could be accepted into the stud book. The popularity of bay and black Finnhorses dropped as well, and at least one mare was removed from the stud book solely because of her bay colour. Colour breeding combined with the export of horses in colours popular in neighbouring countries, especially bays into Sweden, and made chestnut the prevailing colour. In the earliest section of the first Finnhorse studbook, 105 of the stallions listed were chestnut and only 8 were bay. There were stallions of other colours as well, but they were not included in the first book. At one point, chestnuts made up more than 96 percent of the breed.

Because of the vigorous colour breeding for chestnut in the early 20th century, combined with a genetic bottleneck resulting from the low number of Finnhorses that existed in the 1980s, colours such as grey and cream dilutions were preserved only by a few minor breeders. In the 1980s there were fewer than ten grey and palomino Finnhorses combined. All Finnhorse carriers of the cream gene today descend from a single maternal line, founded by the palomino mare Voikko (literally, "Palomino") who lived in the 1920s. While both cream dilution and black are rare, there are some known smoky blacks in the breed, the first of which was a filly foaled in 2009, identified as smoky black and confirmed as such by a DNA test in 2010. The filly is considered "if not the first ever, at least the first in a long long time." In April 2010, a filly appearing to be a double cream dilute was born, sired by a buckskin and out of a palomino. She was blue-eyed and had "pink skin and very pale coat", and was later officially recognised as a double cream dilute.

The roan colour is rare, and today is passed on via a single dam line that descends from the strawberry roan mare Sonja, foaled in 1936. As of 2010, only six confirmed roan Finnhorses exist, all descendants of a 1987 mare, Taika-Tyttö, great-great-granddaughter of Sonja. The second-to-last roan line died out with the passing of the 1981 stallion Jesper Jr, who had no offspring. Grey exists in one dam line, descending from mare Pelelaikka, especially through her maternal grandson E.V. Johtotähti 1726-93Ta, an award-winning working section stallion. The second last grey line died in 2010 with the 1988 mare Iiris 2275-88R, who had no grey offspring.

The silver dapple gene survived for two reasons. First, it only affects black colour and therefore is "masked" in chestnuts. Second, when it does act on black and bay base coat colors, it produces a chestnut-like phenotype. Silver dapple bays were long registered as "cinnamon chestnuts", and silver dapple blacks as "flaxen-maned dark chestnuts".