page_title: Equine coat color
section_title: Lightened colors
hierarchical_section_title: Equine coat color / Lightened colors
context_page_description: Horses exhibit a diverse array of coat colors and distinctive markings. A specialized vocabulary has evolved to describe them.
  While most horses remain the same color throughout life, a few, over the course of several years, will develop a different coat color from that with which they were born. Most white markings are present at birth, and the underlying skin color of a healthy horse does not change.
  The basic outline of equine coat color genetics has largely been resolved, and DNA tests to determine the likelihood that a horse will have offspring of a given color have been developed for some colors. Discussion, research, and even controversy continues about some of the details, particularly those surrounding spotting patterns, color sub-shades such as "sooty" or "flaxen", and markings.
context_section_description: These colors are lighter versions of the base colors, caused by dilution genes.
  Buckskin: A bay horse with one copy of the cream gene, a dilution gene that "dilutes" or fades the coat color to a yellow, cream, or gold while keeping the black points (mane, tail, legs).
  Champagne: Produced by a different dilution gene than the cream gene. It lightens both skin and hair, but creates a metallic gold coat color with mottled skin and light-colored eyes. Champagne horses are often confused with palomino, cremello, dun, or buckskins.
  Cream dilution, an incomplete dominant gene that produces a partially diluted coat color with one copy of the allele and a full dilution with two copies. Colors produced include Palomino, Buckskin, Perlino, Cremello and Smoky Cream or Smoky black.
  Cremello: A horse with a chestnut base coat and two cream genes that wash out almost all color until the horse is a pale cream or light tan color. Often called "white", they are not truly white horses, and they do not carry the white (W) gene. A cremello usually has blue eyes.
  Dun: Yellowish or tan coat with primitive markings, sometimes called "dun factors": a darker-colored mane and tail, a dorsal stripe along the back and occasionally faint horizontal zebralike stripings on the upper legs and a possible transverse stripe across the withers. There are several variations of dun:
  Grullo, Grulla, or Blue Dun: A horse with a black base color and the dun gene. Coat is a solid "mouse-colored" gray or silver (can also be almost brownish-gray) with black or dark gray primitive markings.
  Red Dun: A chestnut base coat with dun factors. Coat is usually pale yellow or tan with chestnut (red) primitive markings.
  "Bay Dun" or "Zebra dun" are terms sometimes used to describe the classic dun color of yellow or tan with black primitive markings, used when necessary to distinguish it from red duns or grullos.
  "Buckskin dun" or "Yellow dun" describes a dun that also carries the cream gene dilution and has a coat of pale gold with a black mane, tail, legs and primitive markings.
  Mushroom dilutes red-based horses to a pale tan color.
  Palomino: chestnut horse that has one cream dilution gene that turns the horse to a golden, yellow, or tan shade with a flaxen or white mane and tail. Often cited as being a color "of twenty-two carat gold", palominos range in shades from extremely light, almost cremello, to deep chocolate, but always with a white or flaxen mane and tail.
  Pearl: Also called the "barlink factor", A dilution gene that when homozygous, lightens red coats to a uniform apricot color, often also resulting in horses with blue eyes. When combined with cream dilution, it may produce horses that appear to be cremello or perlino.
  Perlino: similar to a cremello, but is genetically a bay base coat with two dilute genes. Eyes are blue. Mane, tail and points are not black, but are usually darker than the body coat, generally a reddish or rust color, not to be confused with a red dun.
  Silver dapple: Caused by a dilution gene that only acts upon black hair pigment, it lightens black body hair to a chocolate brown and the mane and tail to silver. The gene may be carried but will not be visible on horses with a red base coat. Silver dapple horses may also be called Chocolate, Flax, or Taffy.
  Smoky black: A horse which visually appears to be either a black with a mildly bleached-out coat or a dull dark bay, but actually has a black base coat and one copy of the cream gene.
  Smoky Cream: Virtually indistinguishable from a cremello or perlino without DNA testing, a horse with a black base coat and two copies of the cream gene.
caption: A buckskin
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon PowerShot A80", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2005:09:11 15:52:11", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "196", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "180", "Thumbnail YResolution": "180", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "2036", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6205", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/160", "EXIF FNumber": "49/10", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2005:09:11 15:52:11", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2005:09:11 15:52:11", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "5", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "117/16", "EXIF ApertureValue": "147/32", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "147/32", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, auto mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "749/32", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2272", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1704", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "2272", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "1704", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "1844", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "56800/7", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "56800/7", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}