Conference noted::equitation

KALE::ROBERTS                                         4 lines  18-MAY-1993 12:11
                     -< What Color was the horse you saw? >-
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    Sorrel is generally defined as a reddish or goldish chestnut, and some
    use the term to mean a chestnut with a light mane and tail.
    
    -ellie

CHEFS::GOUGH                                         12 lines  15-JUN-1988 07:35
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    In the UK, we have piebalds (black and white), and skewbalds (any
    other colour and white).  Collectively, they're called "coloured",
    and there is a quite recently formed Coloured Horse Society.  They
    are still quite uncommon, and tend to be looked down on (I don't
    know why, I like them).
    
    By the way, my pony's chocolate dun - bet you don't have that colour
    in the States!!
    
    Helen.

EQUINE::DANI                                         44 lines  15-JUN-1988 11:41
                                -< definitions >-
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    On to Tobiano and Overo...
    
    Tobiano - Looks like a white horse with dark markings. Typically there
    will be white crossing the back and dark up the chest and up the
    flanks.  The dark tends to look like it's colored from the bottom,
    wrapping upward.  Does not refer to quantity of color.  The edges of
    the colored patches are most likely smooth or rounded.
    
    Overo - Looks like a dark horse with white markings. Usually the entire
    spine is dark (sometimes just the ears and a strip down the spine have
    any dark color at all).  The colored patches tend to be jagged.
    
    Dani
                           

    re: .2  I've seen "chocolate palomina" ponies, which I'll bet is just
    another name for chocolate dun!
    
    Algiers is an interesting color -- especially as a baby.  He is a very
    light, sandy bay, but with more red hilights than a sandy bay.  Lighter
    than most of the red chestnuts I've seen.  In most lighting, we call
    him a honey bay, but in the morning light (around 8am) he actually
    becomes more of a deep gold.  Dorsal stripe, too.  When he got his
    first coggins after I owned him, the vet stood staring at him for
    several minutes while filling out the form and then asked, very
    quietly, "do you call him a bay?"  When he was younger he was very
    close to a dun -- he only turned true bay with his winter coat.
    
    Mary

    Mary,
    
    Is Algiers a dark buckskin? A buckskin is simply a bay that got the
    same dilution gene than turns chestnuts into palominos. They have
    dorsal stripes, dark mane & tail & legs but are lighter than most bays.
    
    John

    In his youth pictures (2 and 3 year old) he looks *almost* as light as a
    buckskin, but isn't yellow enough.  Now he's darker than that -- really 
    is the color of honey.  Clover honey in the summer, buckwheat honey in 
    the winter.  Actually, in the right lighting, he reminds of of an
    Akhal-Tekke.  But inside he just looks like a light bay...I don't know
    if that would qualify or not.
    
    mary

    We have a saddlebred mare who is a dark chestnut.  When she is
    completely shed out, she takes on an iridescence that is beautiful like
    some pictures I have seen of the Akhal-Tekke, but in variations of
    liver chestnut and redish chestnut. Her coat actually looks as if it is
    shining in normal daylight.
    
    Our Chincoteague Pony is a light bay who sounds very much like Algiers
    in color.  He was almost buckskin as a baby, turns bay in the winter,
    and sheds out to a honey-colored dappled bay in the summer.  He also has a
    dorsal stripe.  His mane and tail are dense and black and looong!

    Ok...............If your horse is 3 different colors durning the
    changes of the seasons, what is the true color of the horse?  For our 3
    it is easy.  One is chestnut one is bay and one is grey no matter the
    season.
    
    
    
                                       Virginia

    I would go with the summer color as the true color wouldn't you?
    I think the seasonal changes are more severe in colder climates
    otherwise they wouldn't change colors as much.

summer? or spring - the summer sun has a tendency to bleach colors, especially
dark colors, like black.  There's the old standby (doesn't work for pointed
horses like bays) of 'what color is the hair around their nose'.


btw, john, are roans allowed in the morgan registry?


Kathy, who has a red roan, not a strawberry one ;^)

                         
    	Kathy..  It's a good question about roan... There ARE registered
    	morgans I have seen who ARE roan (Dawn Hill Storm Cloud - who
    	was/is one of the most successful carriage competitors in the
    	U.S. is now more white hair than red... but he has progressivly
    	become more white with age).
    
    	My own Rum Brook Victoria is a red chestnut, her mane and tail
    	are slightly darker but she has MANY white hairs through out
    	her body color - including in her mane!  But again it has increased
    	with age... so I wonder if they might not be registered as roans
    	because they don't show that color pattern until they have some
    	age???  
    
    	Good question...!
    
    

    
    	My registered QH gelding has changed color considerably just this
    past winter.  When I got him last year his summer coat was sprinkled
    with white hairs - but the predominant color was chestnut.  Only if you
    stood close to him could you tell he was a red roan.  
    
    	Well, this spring he shedded out and is now what will be 
    certainly mistaken as Appy coloring with a white snowflake pattern on
    his rump, a nearly white belly and (get this) one side of his neck is
    much lighter than the other side.
    
    	I personally think he looks adorable - anyway I happen to notice
    also that he has mottled-skin - a true appy characteristic.  Have other
    people who have roans found their horses have mottled skin? 
    
    - Janice

    Kathy,
    
    Technically, roan is an acceptable color/color modifier in Morgans.
    Practically nobody uses it though. I think that some MOrgan folks don't like
    to admit they have a roan.
    
    I remember talking to somebody about a horse one time and he described the 
    horse. I asked, "Oh! Do you mean the roan one?" He said, "Yes there's a 
    'little' of that in his coat but we don't call it roan." This was as roan 
    a horse as I've ever seen!
    
    
    What's the difference between red and strawberry roan?

John,

I'm not entirely sure about the differences between the red and the strawberry.
Amos' papers say 'red'...He lives next stall to a 'strawberry'.  I'll try to 
describe the differences and see if that helps. Amos has considerably more 
chestnut hairs than Joe. Joe is almost white with 'red' chestnut hairs thrown 
in, with pretty dark chestnut mane and a mixed tail.  Amos, on the other hand,
has a chestnut neck and head, 95% chestnut rump, and a roan barrel (sort of
oreo cookie-ish - with a blanket or sheet on, you wouldn't know he was a roan).  
His legs are also strictly chestnut, where's Joe's roaning does cover the lower 
parts of his face and down to at least his knees. Amos' chestnut is new-penny 
chestnut (in front) and almost closer to liver on his rump/gaskins.

From a distance, Joe definitely has a 'strawberry' color, where Amos does not.

Next tangent:
How many hpm (hairs per million) white hairs in another color coat does a horse 
need to be a roan (In other words, when is a roan a roan, and when is he not).  
Extending that thought, when do they become some shade of grey (eg. rose grey)?

For example, many horses have a lot of white hairs sprinkled in their coat. 
However, if you back away from these horses, the white hairs are usually not
visible, and they appear to be solid bay/chestnut/whatever.

Kathy

    re .14
    
    AS for the difference between roans and greys, I've heard that it is
    that greys get noticeably lighter each year (mine is white now),
    whereas roans do not -- although they do get a little greyer with old
    age, like any other color.  Another thing is that greys tend to have
    manes, tails, legs and heads darker than their body color, where roans
    do not.  I think I gleaned this last piece of information from the Jockey 
    Club booklet on filling out registration forms.  When you're registering 
    a foal, you can't wait a few years and see if it gets lighter.
    
    John, maybe you know this...
    
    Is there some relation between bay and chestnuts in all this?  Could it
    be that greys are bays with a greying gene?   Gee -- this is
    fascinating stuff, huh?  And if I don't survive the upcoming layoff,
    I'll have lots of time to study up on it.....   8^{
    
    -ellie

    Thanks for the description of the difference between red and
    strawberry.
    
    Following along on the tangent....
    
    I'd say it takes 1,034,597 white hairs per million to make a roan ;-)
    
    Seriously though, I've always been under the impression that a few white
    hairs here and there wasn't considered a roan. And rose grey is what I
    think Arab folks call what you described as strawberry roan. (Can any
    of our resident Arab experts clarify?)
    
    The difference between grey and roan is supposed to be that greys are
    born a color and only add the white hairs with age while the roan is
    born with white hairs sprinkled through the coat and doesn't change
    substantially as it ages. Of course, one of my sources on genetics says
    that a roan can also carry the grey gene in which case it would lighten
    with age and confuse the heck out of us poor horse folk!

    Re
    "Is there some relation between bay and chestnuts in all this?  Could
    it be that greys are bays with a greying gene?"
    
    I don't think so but it's possible. I've never known a grey that went
    WHITE that hadn't been black/brown/bay as a foal. On the other hand,
    I've known lots of "flea-biten" greys whose flea-bites were
    chestnut colored. Maybe the general coat color determines what *kind*
    of grey the horse becomes...I'll see if the genetics book says anything
    interesting about greys.
    

    My grey was still grey when I bought him 12 years ago, and he had dark
    legs, dark head, dark mane and tail.  Over the years he turned
    completely white, and after that some brown flea-bitten marks started
    to appear.  Interestingly enough, his registration papers mention a
    blaze, but it's not visible now.  What is visible, though, when I give
    him a bath and his head is wet, is a "blaze" of white skin against dark 
    skin on his face.
    
    What color are Lippizans considered to be?  Are all of them the same
    color? i.e. born black, turn white with maturity?  Or are other colors
    found in the breed?
    
    -ellie

there is the occasional Lip. that stays dark.  A couple of years ago,
when I saw them at the Worcester Centrum, they had a really nice dark
bay.  (In fact, I liked him the best, cuz he wasn't short, fat and 
potbellied like the greys :*)

I'll buy that greys are greys if they get lighter every year, whereas 
roans stay basically the same.  I won't buy that roans don't have 
roan on their faces, though (see my description of Joe a few back)

White markings often fade into the background as 'lightening' horses get 
older.  

I think the difference between grey's and whites is  what color the 
skin underneath is - if it's dark, the horse is really a grey, if it's 
pink, the horse is white.

White markings tend to have pink skin underneath, which is why they 
show up when a grey horse is wet and the skin color comes out.

    re .-1
    
    Yes, I know that pink skin => white hair.  By this definition, though,
    the only really white horse is an albino.  And if someone wants to
    define it that narrowly, I guess they can.  The final say, for any real
    purposes, is how and particular breed defines color.  I think the thing
    about roans' faces was not to mean that their faces aren't roan; just
    the opposite, maybe, in that greya usually have faces darker than their
    body color, where in roans their faces are often lighter than their
    body color.  But who knows, huh?  I mean, did someone take a survey? 
    8^)
    
    On the pink skin theme -- One of the fillies than I bred was a lovely
    chestnut color, byut when she was born she had pink skin all over!  I
    was horrified, being pretty sure I would never be able to register her
    with the Jockey Club if she was some sort of wierd "chestnut albino"...
    But her skin turned dark within a few days.  She was about t weeks
    premature, so maybe that accounted for this.  Boy did she look funny,
    though, with that pink skin -- chestnut hair, pink lips, pink nose,
    pink ears, pink eyelids, pink dock, pink tummy...  She looked like one 
    of those brown Dobermans.  Looks fine on a dog but really bizarre on a 
    horse!
    
    -ellie

    I know this was brought up before but I would like to address it
    directly.  Doesn't the mane and tail color help in determining the
    coat color?  Our grey has a mane and tail that is dark grey on top and
    almost black underneath.  I account this to the fact that she is out in
    the sun most of the time.  I concider her to be a daple grey but her
    neck is almost solid white while her barrel had patches of dark grey.
    
    Just a thought.
    
    Virginia

    RE:
    
    "Yes, I know that pink skin => white hair.  By this definition, though,
    the only really white horse is an albino."
    
    Technically(according to one of the genetics books I was reading last
    weekend), there are no 'albinos' in horses. Both cremello horses and
    genetically white horses are sometimes called albino but neither is.
    The technical definition of albino includes white hair coat and BOTH 
    pink skin AND pink/red eyes. The eyes of a cremello will be either 
    blue or brown. The eyes of the genetically white horse are usually brown.
    
    That technicality aside, Ellie's statement is correct the only white
    horse is the true genetically white horse. Cremello is not white  and
    neither is grey even though both can APPEAR to be white.

    I have riden an Albino horse.  He was white with pink eyes, maybe not
    hot pink but they were pink enough.  He even had white hooves.  I never
    thought to check his frogs.  I do remember his sheath to be very pink
    on the inside.  He died when he was 5.  No one was really sure of the
    cause.
    
    Virginia

    RE
    "What color are Lippizans considered to be?  Are all of them the same
    color? i.e. born black, turn white with maturity?  Or are other colors
    found in the breed?"
    
    Lipizzaner are considered to be grey. I think they are all born brown. I
    don't recall seeing any chestnut foals when we were at the Austrian
    stud last year. The foals turn grey at various rates. Even at 3 months,
    some were already quite grey and others were still solid brown. I think
    the misconception that Lipizzaner are born black comes from a poor
    equivalence of color names between the 2 languages. In German, the
    color we call brown is called "schwarz" which is literally translated
    as black. They use another name for the true black coat but I can't
    recall what it is right now and my dictionary is at home.
    
    The young stallions(4-7 years old) that we saw at the Spanish Riding
    School were still grey. Only when they are aged(i.e. older than 9) do
    they turn white.
    
    We saw a 28 YO stallion at the stud farm. He LOOKED pure white but you
    could tell he wasn't! If you looked closely, you could see the white
    blaze in his face. It was a whiter shade of pale(and you could see the
    pink skin under it). No, he wasn't wet! ;-)
    
    I think the only color left in the Lippizan besides grey is brown. Long
    ago(i.e. 400+ years when they first started the stud) they came in many
    colors. With the addition of Spanish horses, grey became the dominant
    color with a brown birth color. As an aside, the same is true of the
    Andalusian horses. They are mostly grey with an occasional brown/black
    horse. I think about 20% of Andalusians are brown/black and about 10-15%
    of Lippizaner are brown. Not exactly a 'rare' color as it is often
    described in both cases but not the most common either.