Horses are truly magnificent animals but can also be quirky, playful, and sometimes downright stubborn. They also come in unusual and rare coat colors, and some of these horses seem like they pranced out of the pages of a fantasy novel.
If you are interested in horses, you’re likely aware of some standard colors like bays, chestnuts, and browns, but which are the rarest? Some horse breeds are known for their magnificent colors, and we’ve listed sixteen breeds that can have the rarest and most unusual coat patterns.
1. American Quarter Horses – Cremello
Brown Quarter Horse Mare
Quarter Horses, Saddlebreds, Draft Horses, and Shetland ponies are some of the most common horses used for breeding cremello color varieties.
Cremello horses are incredibly rare. They have rose-colored skin, and their base coat is red, making them technically chestnuts, but due to genetics, the red pigment is reduced. Cremellos have white manes and tails and usually have blue eyes. Their fur is not pure white but a creamy shade.
Dilution genes affecting the red pigment will give different color varieties. For example, if a chestnut has one dilution gene, you will get a palomino, but when there are two dilution genes, you get the stunning and rare cremello.
2. Saddlebreds – Perlino
Bay American Quarter Horses can also be perlinos if they have the cream gene.
Arabs and Halfingers cannot be perlino as the genetic code for cream doesn’t occur in these breeds.
The perlino is similar to the cremello, but they have reddish mains and tails. They also have blue eyes and rosy pink skin, but instead of being bred from chestnut genes, they are bred from bays with darker coats.
A bay horse with a single cream dilution gene will produce a shade known as buckskin. If they have a black base gene, an agouti gene, and a cream gene, it will result in a color similar to tanned deerskin.
When you have two of the cream genes in a bay horse, you get the breathtakingperlino with its ivory sheen.
3. Paint Horses – Champagne
American paint horse galloping across winter snowy meadow.
This stunning color can also be seen in American Quarter Horses, Saddlebreds, Miniature Horses, and Tennessee Walking Horses.
Champagne is a special color variant that comes in three different shades, depending on the original base color of the horse’s coat. The skin color is pink with many small, dark freckles.
The champagne gene can result in Gold Champagne, where the base color is red, such as a chestnut, and the horse’s coat looks golden and their main and tale pale and near-white.
In a bay or brown horse with a black base coat with an agouti modifier gene, the champagne gene results in Amber Champagne. This creates an unusual golden dun color, with a darker main and tail.
With Classic Champagne, the champagne gene dilutes the black pigment on a dark-coated horse and creates a stunning shade that people have described as lilac and greenish, with a slight metallic sheen.
4. Appaloosa – Leopard Spotting
Appaloosa – Leopard Spotting
You might be familiar with the leopard complex from horses like the Appaloosa, but it can also occur in Knabstruppers, Nez Perce Horses, Norikers, and British Spotted Ponies.
Many horses have spotted or dappled coats; these patterns can be isolated to only parts of the horse, such as the hindquarters, and have larger or smaller spots
With leopard spotting, horses have mottled skin, striped hooves, and white sclera around their eyes. White horses covered with Dalmation-like black spots all over their bodies are a striking and rare sight!
You’ll see some horses with only partial spotting across their body, usually referred to as a leopard blanket.
5. Hackneys – Sabino
If you are looking for a sabino patterned horse, you’ll also find it in Mustangs, American Paint Horses, Morgans, and Tennessee Walking Horses.
Sabino is white spotting on a red-pigmented horse, usually over their belly, face, and hocks. These lacy white patterns and roan patches are unique and make a horse look remarkable.
When the sabino spotting is paired with a pale mane and tail, the result is a distinctive coat pattern that stands out from other mottled or patterned horses.
You may hear Sabino referred to by a few other terms. In the UK, this pattern is called ‘Blagdon,’ while Spanish-speaking countries can refer to it as overo. Although the word ‘sabino’ comes from Spanish, in Spain, this term refers to a flea-bitten gray horse – a pale horse with grey freckles.
6. Arabians – Brindle
Arabians – Brindle
The extremely rare brindle pattern in horses occurs in Mustangs, Bavarian Warmbloods, Russian Horses, Quarter Horses, and Thoroughbreds, among others.
Most of us are familiar with brindle patterns in dogs, but it is highly unusual in horse patterns. This stripy pattern is considered one of the rarest in horses. The stripes are vertical on the body and horizontal on the legs, and the head is usually a solid color.
Brindle is not strictly a color but a color pattern; the texture of the hair on the stripes can be a little rougher and less straight than the hair in the base coat color. It’s usually formed of black stripes on a brown or reddish base color.
7. Welsh Ponies – Smoky Cream
Welsh ponies foal in the pasture
You’ll find smoky cream in breeds such as Morgans and Miniature Horses. A smoky cream horse is a black horse with two cream genes, much like the cremellos and perlinos, with the difference that their darker base coat gives them a slightly darker shade, like a very milky coffee.
This amazing color horse also has blue eyes and rosy pink skin associated with double cream genes. While they do not have albinism, their pink skin means people often mistake it.
If you cross a smoky cream horse with a black horse, it’s possible to get a shade known as smoky black.
8. Andalusians – Smoky Black
Andalusians – Smoky Black
Horse breeds such as Miniature Horses, Icelandic Horses, Saddlebreds, Morgans, Quarter Horses, and Mustangs can also be smoky black.
Smoky black horses can be hard to identify as they appear mainly black, but at least one of their parents must carry the cream gene and one the black gene. The cream gene dilutes the black color and subtly shifts the black to a dark brown or a dull, smoky black.
Some horse breeds do not possess the cream gene and cannot produce smoky black foals. They will have black manes and tails, and their eye colors range from brown to gold to amber.
Genetically, this color type is quite rare, and the foals are born a silver dun shade and darken until they reach a similar shade to a dark bay horse.
9. Sorraia Horses – Grullo
The silvery dun color known as grullo also appears in horse breeds like German Riding Ponies, Appaloosas, Swiss Warmbloods, and Florida Cracker Horses.
It’s often seen in wild horses and comes from black horses with a dun gene.
The coat is a sandy, silvery gray with dark legs, man, and tails. They are usually seen with a solid dorsal strip extending from their man to their tail. You’ll see horses of this color mainly in wild breeds like the Tarpan and the Konik, and horses descended from these.
The foals are born pale, and their coats darken over time to reach this distinct silvery dun color.
10. Akhal-Teke – Silver Buckskin
Akhal-teke horse stallion portrait in summer
Horse breeds that produce silver buckskins include Mustangs, Quarter Horses, and Morgans.
Silver buckskin results from a bay horse carrying the cream and silver dilution gene. Silver buckskins have coat colors with more white hairs in their coat, which gives a silvery shimmer over the golden tone of the buckskin coat.
A silver buckskin will usually have darker mane, tail, and points, and these horses are stunning, with some shades looking as though they have been cast out of metal, with a glimmer to their coat that people describe as metallic.
If you’ve seen images of horses with a distinctive metallic gleam, as though they were cast from gold or bronze, you were likely looking at an Akhal-Teke, often called ‘Golden Horses.’ This Turkman horse breed is noted for its extremely shiny coat.
Akhal-Tekes are extremely rare, and variants that are pale golden colors are considered sublime examples of the breed. Due to the hair’s unique structure, this breed of horse has an extremely high-gloss coat, which lends every color type an exquisite sheen.
11. Tennessee Walking Horses – Chocolate Palamino
Some breeds that produce the stunning chocolate palomino type are Arabians, Thoroughbreds, American Saddle Horses, and Quarter Horses.
The chocolate palomino is a truly beautiful horse color. It has a palomino flaxen mane and tail, but the main coat is richer and darker than the standard golden color.
This extremely rare color is created by crossing a liver chestnut (a dark-toned chestnut) with a palomino. Palomino foals are born light and darken over time, but unlike other golden horse shades such as champagne, they have dark skin rather than pink.
12. Caramillo White Horse – White
Pure white can occasionally be found in Morgans, Orlov Trotters, and Arabians.
Surprisingly, true white is a very rare color in horses because nearly 50% of horses carrying the dominant white gene die before they are foaled. Most of the horses you see that appear white are known as ‘grays’ because their skin color is dark, even though their base coat is white.
A true white horse will have pink skin and a white coat. When you see a true white horse, you’ll understand how striking it looks against other ‘white’ horses. Most ‘white’ horses are born dark and lighten with age, whereas a true white will be born pale.
All white horses will still have pigmented eyes, as they do not have albinism. To date, there haven’t been recorded cases of albinism in horses!
Some horses which appear white actually carry the cream gene, which dilutes other colors, and are also not true white horses.
13. Shetland Pony – Mushroom
Shetland pony mare with her foal
The only breeds with the mushroom gene are the Shetland pony, the miniature horse, and Icelandic horses, making them unique to these particular breeds. Other horses with similar mushroom-beige tones will have this from a different genetic trait.
When a horse with a red coat gene is affected by the recessive dilution mushroom gene, this gene will make a chestnut horse have a grey-beige coat, and a bay horse will be a more yellowish-beige color.
Because this is a recessive gene, a foal will only be born mushroom if its parents have the mushroom dilution gene. If you breed two mushroom horses, you will have a mushroom foal.
14. Finnhorse – Silver Dapple
The silver dapple gene is usually found in Scandinavian breeds of horses. You can see these gorgeous color variations in breeds like the American Saddlebred, the American Quarter Horse, the Finnhorse, and the Welsh Pony.
The silver dapple looks somewhat similar to the mushroom but is darker. This dominant gene affects black horses and dilutes the black body to a chocolatey, dappled brown. The mane and tails are diluted to end up flaxen or silver gray.
Silver dapple used to be a much rarer color, but breeders are now selectively producing more unusual shades, such as this stunning silvery brown horse with its distinctive pale mane and tail.
15. Mustang – Sooty Buckskin
The most common horse breeds carrying the gene for sooty buckskin are Mustangs, Morgans, Tennessee Walking Horses, and Quarter Horses.
When darker hairs are mixed into a horse’s coat, usually along the upper body parts, this creates a delightful sooty effect. You will see this sooty look mainly on palomino and buckskin horses.
Sooty buckskins have a lovely golden coat, usually with black points and a black mane and tail. With the sooty gene, they have a dusting of extra black along their upper regions and often a black face mask. This dusting makes them stand out from more usual ‘clear coated’ buckskins.
16. Fjord Horse – Pangaré
If you’ve seen the unusual and beautiful Fjord Horse, you’ll have had a chance at this distinctive light-point coat.
You’re likely familiar with coat patterns that feature darker points – the legs on a bay horse, for example. The pangaré trait could be thought of as the counter-shade to this.
Horses with pangaré coats have pale hair around their muzzle, eyes, and underbelly. You’ll often see this interesting mealy coat in primitive, wild horse breeds.
When the pangaré trait occurs in reddish horses like chestnuts, it is truly stunning, as though the horse has been subtly shaded from red gold to pale champagne.
You will find pangaré horses with either dark mane and tails or light. In a pangaré chestnut, the main and tail may stay red, which produces an exceptionally beautiful horse.
Conclusion
Horse colors can range from the common to the unusual, but these rare colors are usually the result of diluting genes acting on the coat’s red or black base colors. Many breeds produce different color variations, but others are limited to only a few horse breeds.
No matter what color a horse is, we can all agree that there’s nothing quite like seeing horses galloping through the fields, and spotting the unusual coats is always fun.
Resources
https://web.archive.org/web/20171006162403/http://www.vgl.ucdavis.edu/services/coatcolor.phphttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equine_coat_color_geneticshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Champagne_genehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_horse_breeds
