Coat Colors of Horses

Appaloosa: This is a leopard-type spotting, with vertically striped hooves, mottled skin around the eyes and lips and a white sclera of the eye. The six variations are blanket (white over the hips that may extend from the tail to the base of the neck, with the spots inside the blanket being the same color as the base coat), varnish roan (mix of body and white hairs over the entire body), snowflake (white spots on a dark body), leopard (dark spots of varying sizes on a dark body), few spot leopard (nearly white coat that has color just above the hooves, the knees, armpits, mane and tail, wind pipe and face) and frost (similar to varnish roan but with white hairs only on the back, loins and neck).

Bay: The body color ranges from light reddish-brown to very dark brown, with black mane, tail and lower legs. The four variations are dark bay (very dark red or brown), blood bay (bright red), light bay (lighter than a blood bay, more red than gold) and brown.

Black: Horses with this body color are kind of uncommon, and come in two different variations: fading black and non-fading black. If exposed to sunlight on a normal basis, the black will fade to a brown color. Non-fading black is a blue-black color that does not fade in the sun.

Buckskin: This is a bay horse with one cream gene, which is a gene that fades the coat color to yellow, cream or gold while still keeping the black mane, tail and lower legs.

Brindle: This is a very rare color in horses, and is characterized by the "zebra" stripes, often a brown horse with yellowish markings.

Champagne: The body color is a metallic gold color with light colored eyes. They are often confused with palomino, cremello, dun or buckskins.

Chestnut: The body color is reddish with no black. The mane and tail are the same shade. The three variations are liver chestnut (dark brown), sorrel (reddish-tan, the color of a new penny; this is the most common shade) and blond chestnut (lighter tan with pale mane and tail).

Cremello: This is a horse with a chestnut base coat that has two cream genes. This results in almost all the color being washed out until the horse is a pale cream color. They usually have blue eyes.

Dun: The body color is yellowish or tan with a dark-colored mane and tail, along with a dorsal strip along the back. Sometimes there is faint zebra stripes on the upper legs. The four variations are grulla/grullo/blue dun (black base color, coat is "mouse-colored" gray or silver with black markings), red dun (chestnut base coat with red markings), bay dun (classic color of dun with yellow markings) and buckskin dun (pale gold coat with black mane, tail and legs with primitive markings).

Gray: This color results actually from a horse with black skin, combined with dark and white hairs on top. Most gray horses are called white, due to the fact that they lighten as they age and have completely white coats. But a gray horse has black skin, unlike a true white horse which does not. The four variations are salt and pepper (white and dark hairs intermixed over most of the body), dapple gray (dark-colored horse with lighter rings of graying hairs), fleabitten gray (fully white-haired horse with red hairs flecked through the coat) and rose gray (gray horse with red or pink tinge to its coat).

Palamino: The body color is chestnut with one cream gene which results in a golden, yellow or tan coat with a white mane and tail.

Pearl: The body color is a uniform apricot-like color, often with blue eyes.

Perlino: The body color is similar to cremello, except with a bay base coat except their mane and tail are a red or rust color. Their eyes are blue.

Pinto: The body colored is multiple colors with large patches of brown, white, and/or black and white. The seven variations are piebald (black and white spotting pattern), skewbald (white and any other color besides black; white and any two colors, including black), overo (sharp, irregular markings that go horizontal; face is usually white and sometimes with blue eyes; lower legs are dark), sabino (slight spotting pattern with high white on legs, belly, face, eyes), tobiano (round markings with white legs and white around the back between the withers and the dock of the tail with a solid colored head with a star, snip, strip, or blaze), tovero (a mixture of overa and tobinao with blue eyes and a dark head), paint (pinto horses with Quarter Horse or Thoroughbred bloodlines).

Rabincano: The body color has a roan pattern that is mealy or splotchy on part of the body, usually the underside, flanks, legs and tail/head areas.

Roan: The body color has white hair evenly mixed with the body color. Their heads are a solid color, or much darker than the rest of their body without lightening with age.

Silver dapple: The black body hair is lightened due to a gene, causing it to turn a chocolate brown with a silver mane and tail.

Smoky black: The coat is black that is mildly bleached-out or a dull dark bay, with a black base coat and one cream gene.

White: This is the rarest colors of a horse. The body coat is white with a fully or largely unpigmented (pink) skin. They are born white with blue or brown eyes and remain white for their entire lives.