What colors are horses like these?

[ShenanAnna]

Um, I expect she got a very good home, as the breeder had such a good reputation. Alas, it wasn’t with me. I was too taken with a 4-year-old who, when I watched him moving in the pasture, looked like the Olympic dressage horses I’d seen on TV (I was a naive little hunter rider) to ask to see her, although I was interested. Seeing her would have been a production, anyway, as these young horses were out on huuuuge pastures, and I was only looking for one, to be a personal riding horse.

The ranchers took me out to see the herd of 3- and 4-year-old geldings, which involved riding in the truck that took them hay in the winter. They told me that that was the only way to get near the horses.

I was young, a hunter rider from Virginia going to college in the Rocky Mountains, and learning about this new world that I found myself in.

That world did not, however, include Little Miss Belly Spot.

[RMJacobs]

@ShenanAnna

I was young, a hunter rider from Virginia going to college in the Rocky Mountains

If you don’t mind saying, where did you go to college?

Rebecca

[ShenanAnna]

I went to Virginia Tech, then went to visit my brother, who worked in the oil fields then grad school at the University of Wyoming. While visiting, I, a recent grad with depressingly poor job prospects, discovered a program at UW that seemed right up my alley. One talk with the head of it and I was accepted. My very first introduction to how different things were in that part of the country.

[RMJacobs]

Yep, the mountain west is certainly different. I fell in love with it when I moved to Flagstaff in 1979. I couldn’t stay because Flagstaff’s economy was just too precarious, but I finally got it back when I moved to the Front Range in Colorado in 1994. I used to live 20 miles southeast of Denver, and now I live within spitting distance of the Wyoming state line.

I was born in New York City, lived in New Jersey, California and more recently South Carolina. I missed Colorado terribly when I was in South Carolina, and came back to Colorado last year. It would take a lot to make me leave again. I felt so confined in South Carolina. I love trees and the huge variety of vegetation, but you just couldn’t see the weather coming, or even if there was a gas station at the next off ramp. Here you can see forever, or at least it feels that way.

Rebecca

[ShenanAnna]

It is wonderful, isn’t it? I left Wyoming for a job in Maryland, then went back. When I ran into significant health problems I had to leave Wyo. and go back to the east coast. Yes, where I’m living is definitely confining.

Colorado is where I’d really like to be.

[fledermaus]

@JB

what does this mean? How does line breeding create more shade variations?

I’m guessing they mean that breed registries can have an outdated, limited, list of authorized color names, leading to horses being registered as a different color than what they actually are. The AQHA is famous for this.

[fledermaus]

My understanding is that the prejudice against pinto coloring, splash, and colors like dun and buckskin stems from the early days of fine horse breeding in western Europe in the 18th century, when Arabian and Turkish horses were used to develop Thoroughbreds and others through crossing with the best of the local breeds. The horses native to Britain were (and are) sturdy, thick, hairy, and a lot of them pied – the Roma particularly favored piebald draft cobs (Gypsy Cobs), so there was also the association with the despised itinerants as well. So, big white markings were connected to coarse, phlegmatic animals, the opposite of the fiery refined horses that the gentry desired. The solid dark colors were associated with “pure” breeding, inherited from the Middle Eastern and Anatolian imports. When I was growing up in California in the 1970’s this was still some animus against pintos, although not palomino and buckskin, which were traditional ‘western’ colors.

When I was young, it seems to me, was a lot more frowning upon selecting horses mainly because they were an eye-catching color; I can remember cowboys saying disparaging things like “well, he’s got a pretty hide anyway.” Now there are lots of breeders who specialize in it, and I hear people (still mainly the more naive) gushing over color and markings. I can’t say I approve though. I’m crusty.

[Scribbler]

It’s true cream and white pattern genes are not present in the Arabian stock that was used to build up the “blood horse” in Europe. And that all the English horse sports that were originally based on TB or TB crosses grew to favor TB aesthetics. I’ve even read older things that say a grey is “too flashy” to be a hunter.

I’ve also read that the baroque period liked flashy colored horses and indeed you can find paintings of Napoleon on a pinto, though he is much later than baroque. Then classical aesthetics inclined towards solid sober colors. The Spanish may have off loaded a lot of their flashy horses into the new world.

At any rate the American mustang and breeds devolving from them have a very wide range of color. Perhaps creme dilution and white patterns were valuable camouflage. Creme in the desert. I’ve watched my chestnut Frame Overo mare temporarily just disappear in a cedar mulch turnout arena with patches of snow.

As far as Frame Overo mutating in North America in horses of Spanish stock, I’ve read that several times in credible enough sources. It answered my childhood question of why the British distinguish between colors of pinto (piebald and skewbald) and why Americans distinguish between pinto patterns (Tobiano and Frame Overo). The British traditionally only had Tobiano (and Blagdon or Splash in Clydesdales, but that was not seen as Skewbald). Obviously it’s been several hundred years and Frame Overo has moved around a bit.

I never heard of Lethal White as a teen, and it was exactly the kind of morbid fact I would have noted. I wonder how horsemen understood Lethal White before DNA? Frame Overo can be carried by horses that simply look like they “have chrome.” I feel like the TB and WB with “chrome” just have white markings but that stock horses with 4 high white socks and blazes are more likely minimal expression Frame Overo. Anyhow, lethal white wouldn’t be a great gene to have in a free breeding feral population. And it might be another factor trending towards a prejudice against white patterns and even chrome. But I think it’s more that mid 20th century breed registries like AQHA were looking towards TB and English disciplines as a guarantee of “quality standards” and saw pinto as mustang.

[Janet]

@fledermaus

The horses native to Britain were (and are) sturdy, thick, hairy, and a lot of them pied –

I agree with your overall post. Especially the association with gypsies. In the “Poldark” series, it was an absolute anachronism to show member of the gentry cantering a beautiful piebald along the cliff-top. But which native British breeds (besides the gypsy horses) are typically pied? Connemara, New Forest, Fell, Dartmoor, Exmoor, Welsh, Highland, Suffolk Punch, Hackney, Cleveland Bay, Irish Draught - none of them are typically pied. Modern American Shetlands are often spotted, but it appears that the British registry does not allow spotted Shetlands, so I think the coloring has been introduced. Shires and Clydesdales are not fully “native British” and often have “high whites”, though I do not think they are often “spotted”.

[JB]

@Scribbler

I feel like the TB and WB with “chrome” just have white markings but that stock horses with 4 high white socks and blazes are more likely minimal expression Frame Overo.

Given that Frame likes to “push” white off the legs, if you see 4 high whites, the odds of there being Frame is pretty low. But 3 high and 1 low or not there, or some leg white an/above the hock/knee like a marking tried to be there, but not on the cannon? Much better chance of Frame.

But yes, stock horses have much more Frame in them than TBs and WBs

[RMJacobs]

@ShenanAnna

Colorado is where I’d really like to be.

I think you’d be a nice addition to the state.

Rebecca

[ShenanAnna]

What a nice thing to say!