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Sort of spin off: chestnut vs sorrel vs brown?

Horse Care
#1

I saw a post where someone said they had a chestnut (not sorrel) QH, and another posted quoted her later and said they were the same color.

When I was growing up, with 4H and PC, sorrel was a word I never heard.

Then, when I moved to the South, anything that was what I called a chestnut was called a sorrel. And then there were “brown” horses that I would have called chestnut or liver chestnut perhaps.

To me chestnut = red or brown horse with same or similar color mane, tail, legs; I might describe something as a chestnut with flaxen mane/tail for lighter. Bay = red or brown horse with black mane, tail, legs.

The BF, who is a range cowboy, and I went to a rodeo where we were discussing this after his event. He called “red” chestnuts sorrels and “brown” chestnuts chestnuts. Bay was bay. Dark brown chestnuts (liver chestnut-ish) were sometimes brown, sometimes chestnut. He said red horses are NOT chestnuts. Me? I’ll never use the word sorrel, and it’ll always be a chestnut. He can correct me until his chew falls out. :wink:

Breed thing? Discipline thing? Regional thing?

I’m not looking for definites, just thoughts.

#2

I think it’s more of a discipline/breed thing… English people call my red horse chestnut, QH/western people call him sorrel. I tend to say sorrel more often myself, because it makes me think bright chestnut as opposed to a darker or liver chestnut. (:

#3

Chestnut/sorrel seems to be a stock breed thing. The funny thing is, when I got my first horse that was a Breeding Stock Paint the APHA and AQHA had opposite definitions! :lol: I tend to think of stock types as sorrels and anything else as chestnut or liver chestnut. Brown is a hazy area for me though, because how do you know if it’s a really dark liver or smutty bay, etc?

#4

If I remember right, sorrel and chestnut are genetically the same, with some modifier on other secondary color genes.

In the AQHA color rules, they are both the same, the secondary distiction is that sorrel may be called those with the red highlights and chestnut is a less pure red, with more tan of all shades, from light to very dark as in the liver chestnut, changing the pure red of the sorrel.

#5

I’ve got a QH, bright red, is registered as sorrel. Then I have a TB (bad shape when we got him) that was such a light color, it was hard to call him chestnut. Now, with proper feeding he is liver chestnut. I just call them both chestnut.

#6

Regional/ discipline.

#7

I’ve heard sorrel only in reference to red horses with lighter, as opposed to self-colored manes and tails. And brown horses dont have any reddish cast to their hair, and can have black points like bays. A bay has SOME reddish cast to its hair, or its a brown bay (which would make it brown, and not bay, according to the above.) And if a black has any brownish tint to its muzzle its a brown. And what makes a liver chestnut a chestnut instead of a brown horse is the same thing that makes a sorrel a sorrel, namely a lighter mane and tail.

Around here, any horse that is dark as weak coffee is a “black horse” no matter how mahogany bay, brown, or sunbleached it gets, brown hairs on muzzle and elsewhere be damned. I just call mine dark bays, even though they do look right blackish in certain lights.

#8

Have 3 of varying shades of chestnut, most recent is QH whose papers refer to her as sorrel, however, she has been listed as chestnut, and the vet (new to us) just came and pulled a coggins on her and was filling out the form and wanted to put red roan, because she has roaning (light to medium) on her barrel on both sides although the majority of her is solid. Guess it is all in the eye of the beholder.

#9

It’s basically the difference between a mahogany bay and a blood bay. Nobody would argue they aren’t the same color (bay). People seem to differ on what exactly qualifies a chestnut vs sorrel. But regardless, they are the same color (chestnut), both recessive, etc.

#10

I showed my chestnut/sorrel QH in the big jumpers when I was a kid. My trainer used to make me put “sorrel” on the entry forms (where you put the short abbreviation for the color) and so I’d put “S” under color. He ended up listed in the program book as a Stallion at almost every single show. I can say with certainty that the AHSA/USEF folks didn’t know what to make of sorrel as a color :lol:

But I agree that it’s a breed thing. As for regional? I think it’s only “regional” where those breeds are predominant.

#11

Genetically they are the same - ee.

Some refer to them differently depending on whether the mane/tail are the same color as the body, or lighter, and since the QH world tends to have more of the sorrel color, it’s more of a discipline thing.

Brown is ENTIRELY different - it is black based, as opposed to the red-based sorrel/chestnut.

#12

So lemme get this straight (oh there’s a laugh in the horse world): chestnut and sorrel, ie anything reddish with same or similar colored mane/tail that is not something else entirely, ie roans, smutty anything, diluted something or other, just your basic reddish horse, is genetically the same. We just choose to call them different?

images below were random results of Google Image

So THIS is something I would call a chestnut, and the BF would say is a sorrel.
THIS is something we both agree is chestnut.
I couldn’t find anything I’d call a brown horse; they were all bays or smutty looking blacks.

Incidentally, searches for “chestnut horse” turned up about 50 percent for bays…

#13

Depends on the registry, too. JC and AHA don’t use the term “sorrel”, just chestnut.

On the other hand AQHA recognizes both colors, as defined…
[i]Chestnut
Body color dark red or brownish-red; mane and tail usually dark red or brownish-red but may be flaxen.

Sorrel
Body color reddish or copper-red; mane and tail usually same color as body, but may be flaxen. The most common color of American Quarter Horses.[/i]

Really not a whole lot of difference between the two. I have two QHs registered as chestnut - the dam is liver (very dark in the winter) and her filly is deep red, with darker tail (moreso than mane).

Incidently, I also have a QH gelding that is registered bay, but may technically (genetically) be a brown. He sheds out black, with a mealy muzzle, then fades to a dark buckskin-looking color by the end of summer.

#14

I have a few chesnuts, varying from red to liver to just plain brown. All have same color mane/tail/legs. Also, have a few bays…chesnut body and darker (black)mane/tail/legs.

Now, I also have a sorrel(per my vet). He is chesnut body and legs, but very light, almost blond mane and tail.
I always understood sorrel meant the flaxen colored mane and tail of a chesnut. One would still say he was a chesnut, but if being specific, and talking to other horse people, you would say he was a sorrel. Just like you’d say to another horse person, he was a liver chesnut to describe those darker chesnut horses.

Thats my take anyhow.

#15

I usually say ‘Horse was a -shade- chestnut.’

Makes life simple. :slight_smile:

#16

My mare is registered as a sorrel because that was the only choice on the registration papers. :lol:

#17

It’s like someone calling a horse mahogonay bay vs blood bay - genetically E?A?, but some other shade factors have caused the color to be different. Just like there’s a golden palomino vs Isabell, like generic buckskin vs buttermilk buckskin - just denoting differences in shades.

images below were random results of Google Image

So THIS is something I would call a chestnut, and the BF would say is a sorrel.
THIS is something we both agree is chestnut.

I’d actually call the 2nd one liver LOL! A lighter version of liver, but still…

I couldn’t find anything I’d call a brown horse; they were all bays or smutty looking blacks.

Brown
Brown
Lots of brown

#18

Remy is registered as brown - and I have had a lot of people correct me and say he’s a bay. Trust me, I have a bay and he ain’t it. LOL

Hopefully this link works - Photobucket isn’t wanting to open for me.
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/photo.php?pid=1794026&id=1603391978

Ah, here we go. Brown and bay side by side. http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b160/kismom/Nov%201/047.jpg

#19

Basically and genetically there are two colors of horses (that is known) black and red. Every color has one of these two as a base color. Then there is the Agouti, which is the bay gene which is only expressed on black horses by suppressing the “black” except on the mane tail and legs or points. Then there are dilution genes that affect the above genes to make all the other types.

UCDavies

And http://www.animalgenetics.us/CCalculator1.asp

#20

Oh yes, Remy is definitely brown!

Most people just don’t recognize brown, and call it “dark bay” or “black bay”.

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