Well, in all fairness, the Belgian pic I posted was a Canadian Belgian. That’s why it was lighter and more creamy in color. So it can be camouflaged in all the snow. 
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Also Halflingers which look like tiny punches. Maybe there’s a connection? Halflingers run from dark gold to light red with flaxen manes and tails, and some look like palominos but they are all just chestnut.
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Several breeds have been selected for color. Cleveland Bays and Friesians are 2.
Chestnut is still chestnut in terms of the genetics we can test for (ee). But breeds can be selected for phenotype, which is what happened with the Belgian, Suffolk Punch, and Haflinger (and others)
There’s also the genetics of pangare (aka “mealy”) which has also been selected for, however purposefully. The chestnuts with the pale under-belly and armpits and groins, have pangare on top of just being chestnut, and that’s separate from the flaxen deal.
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Yes I was trying to remember the name for the buff colored bellies! It definitely modifies the look of a chestnut.
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There is such a wide variation of horse color and color combinations, variations, and characteristics such as fading.
People generally can’t be assumed to be describing a color correctly per the genetics. They are going just by what they know. And sometimes what they know wasn’t all that accurate.
In my experience, a great many people are only familiar with horses in their range of interest. They think of horse color as being the horses they know. They apply that to ever other horse that crosses their vision.
Plus, what is known about the genetics of horse color continues to evolve. So things that were accepted facts and descriptions at an earlier time, even by people into the science, can change later with new information.
I think one of the major things that science is learning about horse color is that there is more variation in the color of line-bred breeds than the breed description sometimes allows for. (AQHA has entered the chat … )
And in the end … horse color is interesting, but is it really so important to life as we know it? Someone’s horse can be whatever color they want to think it is.
As a kid I used to know an old horseman who didn’t know bay from chestnut and didn’t care, who said “They’re all brown, except some that are white. Some are more brown than others.”
I learned as a kid that “sorrel” and “chestnut” depends on who you are talking to. 
Among the people I know, with a few exceptions, people who use one term, don’t use the other. They are all talking about the same color range.
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To me Haflingers look like mini-Belgians.
I often wonder why in sales ads they’re described as “palomino.” I’d think anyone who owned one would know what color their own horse is.
But then I see dapple-greys frequently advertised as silver dapple.
Lake effect snow and wind chill factor will do that. That explains why I’m so pale in Western NY.
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Color me confused
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There are several things about coat colors that cause confusion. One is that the very same color is called different things, depending on where you live, or what the breed club decided to call it, or just ignorance. Another is that colors can look very similar but have completely different genetic origins.
For example, black with the silver gene – called silver dapple or a number of other things – can look very similar to a flaxen liver chestnut, which is simply a dark expression of red with the flaxen modifier. A dark palomino can also look like a flaxen chestnut but they have the cream gene and chestnuts do not.
My favorite color story takes place standing looking at my paddock when the two horses in it were my brown (aka very dark bay) Morgan and a bright chestnut overo paint. My neighbor whom I didn’t see much came walking by on the road and asked, “So which one is yours, the brown one or the black one?” Took me a few seconds, but I managed to answer, “It’s the black one.”
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whatever they call that Rocky Mtn horse color, I’d buy one just because its soooo pretty!
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Actually, genetically they are red. 
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I think one of the most fascinating things is to look very, very very closely at the individual hairs in a horse’s coat.
Sort out the individual hairs and look at them individually. Almost every horse coat I have seen myself, which is not the full range of color spectrum by any means, has a LOT of black hair, mixed with hair of another color.
So that when we stand back even a few inches, we see bay or chestnut or whatever. Even if the horse appears gray-white.
So interesting how this color palette is mixed, so that we see what we see in horse color.
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what does this mean? How does line breeding create more shade variations?
Yep, because both are flaxen chestnut with pangare
Because they’re describing by phenotype and yes, the lighter ones do look palomino.
Sorry! What I meant was (and man I wrote that poorly!) is that Chocolate is a breed-specific term that in SOME breeds refers to silver dapple, but other breeds use to describe the phenotype in general which can be a dark flaxen palomino
red-based horses can’t produce black pigment, so any black-looking hairs are just really dark red
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I just did! Here in the UK it’s black silver or silver dapple.
This is my RMH x PRE filly
She’ll shed out her foal coat to a dark chocolate with silver mane and tail
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I co-owned a silver dapple shetland pony who lost his eyes because of that gene. There a reason why it is rare.
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First, she’s adorable!!! Wow, interesting cross; I’m an iberian fan. Drooling…
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I grew up before DNA testing and was fascinated by coat color. I had a very white Tobiano pinto (I thought she was bay Tobiano but now think she was bay roan Tovero) as a kid and have a red chestnut Overo Paint now totally by coincidence. I’m in an area with lots of stock horses so got to see a range of pinto patterns, Appaloosas, and creme dilutes. But some of what I believed or read back then turned out to be wrong so the genetics fascinates me now. But so do regional expressions.
It’s true phenotype isn’t always a true guide. Chestnut Halflingers that look palomino. The question of whether you’ve got a bay dun or a buckskin or a dunskin. Do you have a white horse or maximum expression splash? How much pattern is expressed on any given pinto? Or Appaloosa? Perlino or cremello can be hard to tell.apart. Also what if pearl or champagne are added to creme dilute? And how do different pinto patterns mix?
When I was a kid I knew a mare at my barn that had a washed out yellow body with a grey mane and tail and golden brown eyes.
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Possibly a champagne with cream? I still have trouble IDing the champagnes.
Maybe. She didn’t have champagne glow or freckled lips.
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My grade pony (probably a Welsh cross) was gray. He looked white and had black skin. But he would grow red whiskers. He used to be fleabitten in the summer, but never in the winter, until he got old and never looked fleabitten at all any more.
My Paint mare, on the other hand, was sorrel with lots of chrome.
People would ask me questions about my “white” horse. I would tell them, no, he’s gray, while the mare is sorrel and white. They were very confused because the mare’s white and the pony’s gray looked nearly identical.
As for my bay Hackney pony, people who didn’t know horses called him brown. I usually didn’t argue that one.
Rebecca
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