Current update - May 1, 2000. I want to thank everyone for sending pictures and information on this pattern. It turns out it's been noticed by others previously, and has variously been called Lace, Marble, Cobweb, and Giraffe. Eventually a consistent name will need to be settled on for the pattern, and current suggestions have tended toward referring to it as Lace .
Lace sounds prettier than giraffe.
While people have also referred to the pattern as cobweb, cobweb's actually a term for a pattern that appears in dark hair on some dun horses, and is thus not appropriate for this pattern as well. Dawn and Tommy Thompson of Lost Spoke Ranch have started an egroups lacing community to gather data about lacing and what scenarios produce it. Pictured above is their pintaloosa miniature horse Lost Spoke's Legecy . However, a couple of horses really started me thinking there might be something else going on. Over her topline and partially over the top of her ribs she had dark patches of hair that stood noticeably higher than the surrounding lighter hair which was either dark chestnut or that reddish color that faded black horses get.