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Article #63: What Color Is A Horse?

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What color is a horse? The words for a horses.
horse's coat color have very specific Dun horses have a sandy yellow to reddish
meanings. brown coat. Their legs are usually darker
A bay horse has a body coat that is a than their body and they sometimes have
shade of brown with black legs, mane, and faint zebra stripes on their legs. Dun
tail. Within the bay group, there are horses always have a dark stripe down the
blood bays which is a more dark reddish middle of their back along their back
shade of brown and bright bays which can bone, known as a dorsal stripe.
look a golden brown. There are also black Sometimes the dorsal stripe continues
bays, which might appear to most people down the horse's tail and through the
as a black horse. Truly black horses are mane. Many dun colored horses also have
a more rare color. face masking, which makes the horse's
Most horses that you might think look nose and sometimes the rest of the face a
black are black bays, which is a very darker color than the horse's body.
dark brown. You will see lighter colored A buckskin horse has a sandy yellow or
hair between the hind legs and tummy area tan color with black legs, mane, and
and around the muzzle. This makes them tails. Buckskins are similar looking to
black bays instead of black horses. duns, except that buckskins do not have a
People also call this seal brown. dorsal stripe or other primitive markings
A chestnut horse has a coat that is a that are seen in duns.
shade of red, while the legs, mane, and Palomino horses have gold-colored coat
tail may be lighter or darker than the with a white or light cream colored mane
body, or the same color, but never black. and tail. A palomino coat can range from
A chestnut horse can be any shade of red, a light off-white shade to a deep shade
reddish-brown, or orangey-red. A very of gold.
dark brownish red with no black on the Roan horses have white hairs mixed with a
legs, mane, or tail is known as liver body color to produce blue roan, which is
chestnut. It is a more rare color. Sorrel roan mixed with black, red roan, which is
is another word for a light chestnut roan and bay, and strawberry or rose
color. roan, which roan and chestnut.
Grey horses have black skin with white or There are other white body markings and
gray hair. A grey horse might look white, spots that can affect the horse color to
but if its skin is dark, it is a grey. be a Paint or an Appaloosa, which also
Grey horses are born a dark color, such have breed registries just for them.
as black or brown, and their coat grows (We'll save those topics for another
lighter as they grow older. There are article.)
light grey, dapple grey, flea-bitten So next time you see a brown or black
grey, and steel grey variations in horse, look carefully - What color is the
coloring. A white horse must have pink horse?
skin, which is more rare than grey






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