User:Pitke/Guide

Before you proceed

Why you are here

• you want to see a selection of horse colours, or, more likely,
• you need some help with identifying a horse's colour, or want to find a name for its colour

Disclaimer

• this identifying guide is absolutely not 100 % proof in any way because

• most importantly, a photo is a limites view - if we could choose we'd see the animal itself multiple times, during coatshed, in summer, in winter, in low and high light and so on, and we'd like to know its birth shade as well;
• some colours have a lot of mimics;
• some colours look a lot like some others and need a trained eye to distinguish between the two;
• special circumstances may alter a horse's colour to the point of being completely misleading;
• multiple colour factors can and do occur in horses at the same time - sometimes the combination is discernible, sometimes not;
• and lastly, new mutations do occur.

Notes

• italics indicates I am talking about a horse coat colour - compare brown and brown
• "factor" refers to the genetic thing that affects something, often misleadingly called a gene
• to make things straight, I'll illustrate the names I'm calling some shades - refer to the gallery below if you feel a need to check what I mean with "chocolate" again

Shades gallery

Tan Mahongany

The path

1. White

In this section it's important that you know the difference between pure white coat and off-white coat.

Because horses rarely are as clean as they could be, even a pure white coat can and will often be slightly yellowish. Especially legs can be dusty or muddy.

Pure white (with yellowish mane and tail).	Off white (with yellowish mane and tail)	Foremost foal: clearly paler than its light tan twin but not white; for comparison, see its lower legs where it has white markings.

1.1. Full-white or near-white

	Completely white - see Part A
	White with really tiny coloured spots in the head and/or the body - see Part A
	White with small coloured spots, and/or coloured streaks in mane/tail, and/or freckled skin - see Part A
	White with faint greyness in the legs and/or body and/or tail/mane - see Part B