Hi!
I picked up some teaching at a real farm barn. They have drafts and draft crosses mostly. Many of the sweet horses are related (in a good way with careful breeding). They all have basically a rich chestnut color coat but.a flaxen mane and tail although some of them have chestnut tails but the manes are mostly flaxen. So…what would you call the official color of these horses?
And - one more…what about ponies that are hot chocolate/cocoa colored with a dull flaxen mane and tail? Thanks!
The chocolate ponies with lighter manes and tails are a color that’s usually called silver dapple. It’s a pretty common color among Shetland ponies and miniature horses. Although I am NOT a color genetics person, so I could be wrong.
As for the draft horses, do they look like this? This is a Belgian.
Awesome - yes silver dapple - I think I have heard of that before. The drafts are much more red - really rich chestnut-y red vs the cream in the pic you have there. I will get a pic next time I am there! Thanks!
I should (shamefully) admit that I am a long time graduated Pony Clubber and grew up in 4-H as well - lol. I was talking with the kids during a walk break and asking them the colors of their mounts. Turns out - I really didn’t know the color of the silver dapple pony and the big drafts - I started to say chestnut but then thought - hmmmm flaxen manes…not chestnut. And not palomino either. What IS it? Lol
Chestnut can have flaxen manes and tails.
When I was a kid, we called silver dapple “chocolate palomino” (we had one, a Shetland with outstanding color, platinum mane and tail and lots of dapples), which may help you remember. Silver horses and ponies come in many shades, and can change.
There are many web sites that explain this and have color pictures. Do a search and you’ll learn so much!
Yes Jenerationx! Just like that. What would you call that color?
Those horses are chestnut; the lighter body color is often called sorrel; western horse people generally call all chestnut-colored horses sorrel. I think that western folks may call some darker horses chestnut, to further confuse things.
Chestnut with flaxen mane. Chestnut can be darker shades. Really dark ones may even be liver chestnut with flakes manes.
I always thought the “chocolate” was really a dark liver chestnut. So same general color scheme as chestnut with flaxen manes/tails.
But … no color expert here, either, so could be wrong. 
Chocolate is silver dapple, or the silver gene on a black base coat.
Not all Rocky Mountain Horses are chocolate. Breeding one chocolate to another can cause eye problems.
Those are beautiful horses, LookinForSpace. Thank you!
Chestnut, with flaxen. That is the color of the typical Belgian Draft, the Haflinger, and several other breeds
Need more info. Some are palomino, some are Silver Dapple.
It depends. if you’re talking about a Rocky Mountain Horse then yes, likely Black Silver (Silver Dapple) Morgan? More likely a dark palomino
Just know that sooooo many of them are really, really wrong
Yes, that’s a breed term, but genetically it’s incorrect, it’s (black) Silver Dapple
this points out the problem with trying to describe what a color looks like. “Chocolate” has been used in some breeds that are actually silver dapple, in others that are actually dark palomino, in other that are actually liver chestnut w/ flaxen.
It’s not this, any more than it is a dark palomino, though the RMH breed does use “chocolate” to describe certain shades. It’s as bad as the QH world using “silver grulla” to describe the lighest shade of black dun, without the silver gene present at all.
There are some good websites that go into the genetics of color, how creme or champagne or silver dapple or dun etc modify the base coat which is always chestnut, bay or black.
What still is not known is how these colors express differently. A bright red bay and a dark brown bay are the same genetically. Different shades of chestnut are the same genetically. Chestnuts can have flaxen manes and wildly multicolored tails where every hair is a different color, white black golden beige red brown.
So the expressions of these various colors and modifiers can look different between different horses.
To complicate things, there are so many names for variations of color that are the same genetically, often regional, so some people distinguish between sorrel and chestnut though they are the same genetically. And different breeds may have different traditional names for colors.
Yep, that’s why I said “called” chocolate, instead of saying it is chocolate. Genetically, it’s silver dapple, but the correct breed term is chocolate. We’re saying the same thing. 
Some chestnuts have flaxen manes.
Some people call a chestnut with a flaxen mane a sorrel.
Western horsepeople often call any chestnut a sorrel.
AFAIK Belgians (the American version) are called chestnuts but check the breed registry.
Brabant Belgians (the original Belgians AFAIK) can be roan and maybe other colors.
Suffolk Punches are draft horses that are always chestnut. IDK whether they ever have flaxen manes and tails or not.
Suffolk Punches are officially “chesnut” and are the only horse breed of that colour. Genetically they are chestnut.
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