What colour is my horse?!?!

[Scribbler]

Yes, it varies by population but there’s a lot of dun or creme dilution in North American feral horse populations. Modern Andalusians have been bred to favor grey but modern Lusitanos have a lot of creme (buckskin especially) so I think that’s definitely an Iberian trait. I also expect that dun and creme dilutions are a survival advantage in desert environments as the horses camouflage well. The first horses were dun the color of dry grass on the steppes!

Roan could be a muting camouflage too. Also pinto colors can provide “dazzle camouflage” where you can’t quite see the shape of the horse. My chestnut frame Overo can briefly disappear in plain sight in a hog fuel ring with patches of snow!

Grey comes with health risks through melanomas, and for some reason greys are often at the bottom of herd hierarchy and picked on, so they might not have a survival advantage in the wild. While there are several domestic breeds that have been selected for grey, I can’t think of a feral population that has significant numbers of greys. And in breeds that select narrowly for performance only, like TB, greys are occasional.

[Aussie_2020]

Would you explain corn marks and where you see them? (Yes I can look it up but since I’m here I thought I’d ask )

[JB]

@Aussie_2020

So is this horse blue roan? There is white at the tail top but no white above the eyes.

classic black (blue) roan, likely with rabicano as well (the tail). The white above the eyes on the other horse is an anomaly

@Scribbler

My understanding is that the Hancock line of QH has a lot of roans, and breeders select for roans.

Most definitely

@Scribbler

I also think “blue roan” is phenotype, and a very dark bay roan might not look any different than a rusty black roan.

Yes, too often people use colors to describe the phenotype, which makes things even more confusing for those trying to learn. Blue roan should ONLY be used to talk about a black horse with roan.

@OnAMission

As I recall too I see more roan in the wild horses than grey or rabicano.

Since bay dun is the original horse color, and even though a lot of domesticated horses escaped and have contributed highly to wild herds, original colors still like to be most common.

The Gray mutation was purposefully bred for in the breeds it showed up in, where that doesn’t happen in wild herds. Rabicano may be more present than most think, since it usually shows up pretty mildly.

@Aussie_2020

Would you explain corn marks and where you see them?

any (at least most/much of the) time a roan horse’s skin is broken, the hair grows back the base color - black, bay, red - instead of with white hairs mixed in

[OnAMission]

This is an excellent example of the corn marks on a roan mustang. They really go through it out there sometimes! Sand Wash Basin horse, photo cred on the watermark.

https://www.facebook.com/sandwashbasin/photos/a.353758784771283/1666514650162350/?type=3

[Aussie_2020]

Wow! Talk about a war horse.

[jvanrens]

@Aussie_2020

His color doesn’t look like any of the blue roans I’ve seen in person,
too much of a brown/smoke tint . It looks like he has a tiny patch of white at the top of his tail. I love the eyebrows

Black comes in different shades. I don’t know what else you would call him. He doesn’t have any indications of being bay. He certainly isn’t red, his legs are completely black. He looks like a very minimally expressed roan or a horse with lots of flecking.

[Jarpur]

@Scribbler

dun and creme dilutions are a survival advantage in desert environments as the horses camouflage well

This is my experience with my (and my family’s) personal horses – having owned dun (both bay and red), buckskin (including double dilute), dunskin, palomino, etc., they can disappear in plain sight. Once, I was a couple hours out of town, on my way to visit my folks, when my husband called to say he couldn’t find the horses, that they hadn’t come in from the bottomland when he called.

I told him I could guarantee they were standing right there, in the trees, looking at him, and he should tell our lead mare (red dun) that, if I had to turn my car around and drive home to get them up, I wasn’t gonna be happy about it.

Sure enough, when he checked again, there they were, with innocent “we’re right here, why are you yelling for us?” expressions. Lol.

[Aussie_2020]

I wouldn’t know what color to call him. He’s beautiful and very interesting to look at with those eyebrows. Scribbler is knowledgeable about coat colors so I’ll believe them.

[jvanrens]

@Aussie_2020

I wouldn’t know what color to call him. He’s beautiful and very interesting to look at with those eyebrows. Scribbler is knowledgeable about coat colors so I’ll believe them.

And I’m not? Thanks so much.

[Aussie_2020]

I have no idea if you are. But Scribs gave a detailed description that I read and understood. No harm meant!

[Scribbler]

If you’re around a lot of “Western” breeds the various patterns and dilutions are common enough that you start thinking about them :). If you’re around good English horses, especially TB but also most WB you see mostly bay and chestnut with a few black and grey. I was around a lot of Western horses as a kid and was totally fascinated by the advances in genetics when I returned to riding as an adult. I’ve met adults who got very good riding instruction as children but didn’t know the word for palomino!

One of the horses in our barn as a kid was light yellow with a stone grey mane and tail and dark yellow eyes. Otherwise a grade mare of unknown ancestry and crazy fast barrel horse. My own horse was a minimal Tobiano I assumed was bay base but now realize she was likely roan as her head was solid brown but her two or three small belly spots were roanish. My sister had a big dark gold palomino with sooty patches and spots, he could look green at times. I thought bays were beautiful right now I have a chestnut Overo and help caretake a buttermilk dunskin, who had a perlino foal a few years back. When I did actual riding lessons for 5 years I was around normal bays chestnuts and grays, but otherwise the odd colors seem to find me.

[jvanrens]

@Scribbler

f you’re around a lot of “Western” breeds the various patterns and dilutions are common enough that you start thinking about them :).

Does 40 odd years count?

@Scribbler

One of the horses in our barn as a kid was light yellow with a stone grey mane and tail and dark yellow eyes. Otherwise a grade mare of unknown ancestry and crazy fast barrel horse.

So palomino?

@Scribbler

My own horse was a minimal Tobiano I assumed was bay base but now realize she was likely roan as her head was solid brown but her two or three small belly spots were roanish.

Or possibly the “roan” that is often seen with tobiano?

@Scribbler

right now I have a chestnut Overo

Which one of over over 30 odd white patterns that fall under the overo pattern, which is anything not tobiano?

[Scribbler]

Sorry frame Overo. Classic frame pattern

The yellow mare with the definitely gray mane and tail and yellow eyes was not a proper palomino. Her mane and tail were steel grey. I’ve never seen that before or since. Her coat was also a muted yellow, not a clear palomino. I now think she might have had something like champagne on top of buckskin. I’ve never seen a photo of this color either. I think she had a line down her back too, bit no black points.

[JB]

@Scribbler

One of the horses in our barn as a kid was light yellow with a stone grey mane and tail and dark yellow eyes.

Cream likes to put on some amber-ish eyes, and the yellow with gray sounds like palomino with sooty

@Scribbler

My own horse was a minimal Tobiano I assumed was bay base but now realize she was likely roan as her head was solid brown but her two or three small belly spots were roanish.

Tobiano likes to make some roan-y spots on its own, so who knows!

[SillyHorse]

My guesses are:
Centaur
Bank
Celery
Boy
Bread, but with a P

[eightpondfarm]

@Scribbler

I can’t think of a feral population that has significant numbers of greys.

Sand Wash Basin HMA (in Colorado) has a preponderance of grays. I was buying from their 2022 auction and there were (seems at least to have been) 1/3 grays… I had to scroll on by a number of lovely moving horses because i don’t want any more grays.

Both Warlock and Sinnerman have a lot of corns, (nothing like the photo you posted…that was Rendezvous?) Both my boys weren’t gelded until they were 12 so they were fighting out there for a while…probably since age 5 or 6.

[jvanrens]

@eightpondfarm

Both Warlock and Sinnerman have a lot of corns, (nothing like the photo you posted…that was Rendezvous?) Both my boys weren’t gelded until they were 12 so they were fighting out there for a while…probably since age 5 or 6.

Are they from the same HMA? I’m wondering if there’s a roan mutation that is really minimally expressed, unless their roan is more obvious at different times of the year? There wouldn’t be any point in testing them, unless a Hancock or Goodbar bred horse got out in the herd years ago.

[Scribbler]

You could test for the roan gene. But unless it’s breeding stock and you are breeding for color, it doesn’t matter that much. Other breeds have roan and there’s been a lot of admixture to the mustang gene pool over the centuries

[jvanrens]

@Scribbler

You could test for the roan gene. But unless it’s breeding stock and you are breeding for color, it doesn’t matter that much. Other breeds have roan and there’s been a lot of admixture to the mustang gene pool over the centuries

The roan test at UCDavis is only good for two QH bloodlines, Hancock and Zippos Mr Goodbar. That’s what I mentions in my post above. It could be possible that a Hancock bred mare or stallion got out with the herd, or possibly a Brabant or roan Percheron, but they won’t test through UCD either, just like the roan TBs from Australia won’t, because they are a different mutation. I believe there is a test for Brabants that is available through a genetics lab in Europe.

[bugsynskeeter1]

Do you have a source for the information regarding UCD’s Roan tests?