Interesting winter coat growth pattern on (gray) pinto

[SummerRose]

Not really a question, just something I find interesting.

First, I got to spend the morning with my horses and it’s amazing what a few hours with horses will do for my mental health. I think we must be enjoying one of the best hobbies ever.

But on to my comment about the way my mare’s winter coat grows in - it comes in much quicker over her pink skin than it does over her black skin. At times, it almost looks like I’ve taken clippers and cut a weird pattern into her coat. It’s most obvious over her hindquarters, less so over her shoulders, and no obvious difference around her head and legs.

I’ve worked with a fair number of pintos before and I don’t remember seeing such an obvious difference on them, but maybe it’s the gray coat that makes it more visible? A friend has a black and white pinto boarder who does the same thing, though a little less obviously, but none of the many pintos at my current barn have hair that grows in like this. (I know. I hiked through the fields and looked. )

Anyway, just thought I’d share some pics because I find it interesting. (The photo with the dark gray tail and dapples was from when she was young.)

[endlessclimb]

I knew a leopard POA that grew his winter coat like this - the white was over double the length of the dark spots! He looked super weird, like he had holes in him. After a couple months it would all even out.

I feel like white hair sheds more all the time. Maybe it’s my imagination?

[rememberthenight]

I actually have known a decent amount of pintos that grew hair and shed it this way. I never found a vet who could give a good explanation, but my greys also shed later than my black horses, so I don’t know if the hair makeup, makes certain colors more sensitive to the season changes.

[quietann]

Sidetrack, but I’ve enjoyed seeing gray horses that were actually pintos under their white coat. A friend had one - show name Invisible Ink, barn name Squid - who was a very ordinary looking white horse until he was hosed down and revealed to be a beautiful tobiano.

[SummerRose]

I bred a lhalf Arabian, half appaloosa.

He was born chestnut with a blanket, shed out his foal coat and turned into a leopard, then eventually grayed out altogether.

I later sold him to a barn where he was used in the lesson program. The kids loved hosing him off because he “changed color when wet.” He turned pink with purple polka dots!

Regarding the uneven coat growth (which the color-changing pony didn’t have), both my mare and my friend’s pinto boarder are highly susceptible to sunburn. I wonder if that’s related?

[Paisley_Pony]

My mare’s white areas are always thicker and begin to shed before her blackish brown patches. I’ve wondered about this, too.

[RMJacobs]

I had a sorrel Paint mare who looked like a hi-lo carpet in winter. Her white hair would grow much longer and thicker than her sorrel.

Rebecca

[Bluey]

Our old paint, he was around here 20 years, in this picture he was 30, his whole life in the winter his grey hair was longer than the sorrel hair, that was slicker and shinier:

[Scribbler]

My Overo Paint mare grows a winter coat with the white visibly much poofier than the chestnut.

[ShenanAnna]

My friend had an appaloosa where the chestnut spots in his blanket had much thicker hair than the white surround, especially one big bright chestnut one. Odd looking.

[ThreeWishes]

That is so interesting! Beautiful really…

[TheJenners]

Big Appaloosa I knew did the same thing, his white patches grew long/thick faster and then shed first as well.

[stb]

I currently own a palomino paint. His white hair seems thicker and it most definitely sheds out first. I used to lease a pinto that had the same thing going on, so I figure it’s just a pinto/paint thing.

[Maythehorsebewithme]

When he was in direct sun in warm months, my pinto’s bay areas were always warmer than his white areas. You could feel the difference by running a hand over him. I guess the white reflected the sun and the dark absorbed it. I wonder if that has something to do with it.

[Chall]

His side brown spot looks like a map of Australia. He looks well loved in his old age.

[Bluey]

@Chall

His side brown spot looks like a map of Australia. He looks well loved in his old age.

He was an absolutely wonderful horse, raised several kids, wish there were more like him around.

[SonnysMom]

My grey and white pinto does this. He is also only getting the flea bite colors or the grey area. There was a chestnut and white pinto in the barn and his white and chestnut colors would come in and shed out at different rates.l

[Baybear]

A friend of mine had a grulla paint and her coat grew differently too - I think the brown was thicker than the white. My Irish horse he’d grow a winter coat that was more like a wired hair terrier than a horse…