Horse Coat Colors

Horse Coat Colors

Horses exhibit a diverse array of coat colors and distinctive markings. A specialized vocabulary has evolved to describe them.

While most horses remain the same color throughout life, a few, over the course of several years, will develop a different coat color from that with which they were born. Most white markings are present at birth, and the underlying skin color of a horse does not change, absent disease.

The basic outline of equine coat color genetics has largely been resolved, and DNA tests to determine the likelihood that a horse will have offspring of a given color have been developed for some colors. Discussion, research, and even controversy continues about some of the details, particularly those surrounding spotting patterns, color sub-shades such as "sooty" or "flaxen", and markings.

Read more about Horse Coat Colors:  Basic Coat Colors, Other Coat Colors, Other Color Modifiers, Markings and Other Unique Identifiers, Color Breeds

Famous quotes containing the words horse, coat and/or colors:

    But all is changed, that high horse riderless,
    Though mounted in that saddle Homer rode
    Where the swan drifts upon a darkening flood.
    William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)

    If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt.
    Bible: New Testament, Luke 6:29.

    We may say that feelings have two kinds of intensity. One is the intensity of the feeling itself, by which loud sounds are distinguished from faint ones, luminous colors from dark ones, highly chromatic colors from almost neutral tints, etc. The other is the intensity of consciousness that lays hold of the feeling, which makes the ticking of a watch actually heard infinitely more vivid than a cannon shot remembered to have been heard a few minutes ago.
    Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914)