Once upon a time I was highly uptight about horses being called their correct coat color. There were the pretty palominos. Buckskins, not to be confused with duns. Bays. Blacks, but you had to make sure they were really truly black and not a black bay or seal brown or such. Grays, not white. Sorrels and chestnuts and when they might look like the same color but would be one and not the other. Oh and then the Paints (a breed), the Pintos (just the coloring) and Appaloosas. Plus in the Paints and Pintos there was the Overos, Tobianos, Toveros, Sabinos and something else too I think.
Somewhere along the way, I realized I don’t care that much.
Here’s the coat colors I use know.
Yellow – for palomino, because I really don’t care. It’s economy of syllables.
Bucky – I know it’s pretty close still to Buckskin. Sometimes I call them yellow but with black manes and tails.
Dun – I don’t care what shade of dun it is, red, green, purple or just dun – they’re all duns.
Bay – I haven’t come up with a shorter way to say red with black manes and tails.
Black – for anything that looks like it may be mostly black, even if it is seal brown, dark bay or whatever. I’ve been know to call liver chestnut horses black too.
Gray – for when they look like they are really gray.
White – for a gray horse that has grayed out enough that most ignorant people would call it a white horse.
Red – sorrel, chestnut, sometimes even a red dun – if it’s a shade of red or orange or copper – it’s a red horse.
Spot – any kind of spotted horse. Be it an Appaloosa, Paint, Pinto or something else I haven’t run across yet. If I’m feeling elaborate I will include what color is included with the spots.
Why? Like I said I don’t care that much (ok, except when I need to register a foal then it does matter.) Also, it irritates some people. Irritating people can be fun. Finally, it can make some people think I’m ignorant about horses. This can be a bonus. I can come in with ninja like skills and out horseman them and they never see it coming. Because I called that palomino horse yellow.
Yep, that's yellow.
Oh one other thing before I show the examples. It has been said that a good horse is never a bad color. I disagree. Double dilutes (Cremellos and Perlinos – Google it) are ugly. Pink eyes and skin, no spots. No one has ever been able to pay me enough to ride one. Actually, I don’t even go in much for the spotted horses anymore. Give me a red horse any day and I’m happy.
Examples: (please note I don’t have sample pictures of all the colors, just a few)
Gray.
Red on the left. Bay with his butt to the camera.
Yellow with yellow.
Spot. Black and white spot to get specific.
Anyhow, you get the idea.
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I can’t believe I forgot to say anything about green horses! A green horse is any spot, yellow or white horse that has laid in something stinky and green and experienced color transfer of a seeming permanent nature. This can also happen as a yellow horse, when they lay in their urine. Also, a generic brown horse can happen when a yellow, white or spot horse rolls in mud.
Those are the reasons why I prefer a red horse – they are usually red, no matter their environment.
Love your list! And I’m with you on the ease of Reds. Having had a brown and white Spot, a Bucky and a Gray (eventually gone White) they’re pretty, but just too much damn work. Well, the Bucky with the black tail, mane and stockings still is kinda purdy when he’s all cleaned up, but why do all the light colored ones have such an affinity for mud and grass stains?
My experience is that the bucky’s are sort of dirt color, so they tend not to get as gross looking as some of the other light colors.
Ok, I have a theory on the light colors seeking out ways to be other colors. Ready for it? They are ashamed of their paleness. Since they can’t tan, they must camouflage in other ways. Hence the poo and pee stains, or full on mud baths. Maybe that’s not really it. I don’t know what I’m talking about at all!
Thanks for stopping by and commenting.
When folks ask me what I call my horse, I tell ‘em. ” A Horse”. When they say, “No, I mean their coat, what do you call their coat”, I answer, “I ain’t bought one for it yet, shoes is all I can afford for it so far.”
Love it!
What – no plaid?
Sigh…
Um, no. This is the closest we got – http://www.dunbarsgold.com/
I can’t believe I didn’t read this earlier!
I feel the same way you do. While I don’t think of yellow horses as ‘yellow’ horses…I don’t care for spotted or painted ones. My first horse was a buckskin. In the winter he’d be almost beige, in the summer, a nice light buckskin. Now I’m told he was a perlino or something odd like that.
There’s a bunch of folks who have all sorts of wierd names for colors. “Silver Dapple” is what they call a very dark liver chestnut with flazen mane and tail. They make it up. The horse has no silver and no dapples and it’s a ‘silver dapple”?
As for your comment about light colored horses seeking out other light colored horses…this is a fact. It’s been studied and research papers drawn up on it. They DO. The folks who insist horses are color blind are stupid. They, like all other mammals, can see color. They, like other mammals, know what color they are. The light colored horses know they make a fabulous target for a far sighted predator, and the darker horses want to be nowhere around the light ones.
Thanks for a great post. If I may, may I take off with your topic and write something in the same vein? I don’t want to steal your thunder, but this is rich, rich writing ground, and I’m between horses right now.
Sorry to be slow in replying. I’ve been taking a writing vacation the last week or so.
Absolutely feel free to take the topic and run with it! If a horse is too ugly to ride, then it’s a bad color. Sorry you had to endure some Perlino trauma in your past.
I need to write about my clinic ride a couple weeks ago – Kanak (a yellow horse) was completely mesmerized by a red and white pinto thing. He just kept watching this horse go around the arena. Half a dozen other horses in the pen at the same time – had to watch the spotted horse go. Pretty sure he wanted to tell that other horse, “dude, dude, I think you’ve got like some sort of skin disease or something, you’ve got like a bunch of white hair in places. And it’s not like pretty, like I am.” Have I mentioned that Kanak’s pretty much a surfer dude? That’s a whole other post though on personalities.
But, yes, made up colors and one color being better than another – please, spare me. I guess I’m kind of have color preference, it’s just the opposite bias of a lot of people. Everyone else wants unique – I just want a normal horse.
Looking forward to where you take the topic!