Horse Information
Nov 28, 2014 19:09:06 GMT -6
Post by twiztid on Nov 28, 2014 19:09:06 GMT -6
care to peek at the colors and markings I have hidden beneath my mask HORSE COLORS / HEIGHTS -- horse color chart -- This chart has horse colors along with some paint and appaloosa markings even some eye colors are on this chart Horse breeds and Heights -- here is a cool site that has many horse breeds along with their max heights and the colors that they can have HORSE MARKINGS -- Common facial markings are: Blaze: a wide white stripe down the middle of the face. Strip, stripe, or race: a narrow white stripe down the middle of the face. Bald Face: a very wide blaze, extending to or past the eyes. Some, but not all, bald faced horses also have blue eyes. Star: a white marking between or above the eyes. If a stripe or blaze is present, a star must be significantly wider than the vertical marking to be designated separately. Snip: a white marking on the muzzle, between the nostrils. Additional terms used to describe facial markings include the following: Faint: A small, yet permanent marking that usually consists of white hairs without any underlying pink skin. Interrupted: A marking, usually a strip or blaze, that is broken and not solid for the entire length of the face. Connected: Occasionally used to describe distinctively different markings that happen to be joined to one another Irregular or crooked: A marking, usually a strip or blaze, that does not have a more or less straight path. Lip markings: have no specialized names, usually are described by location, such as "lower lip," "chin", etc. Lip markings may indicate presence of the sabino color pattern. OTHER HORSE MARKINGS -- environmental factors - Occasionally things like viruses and fungal infections can affect the appearance of a horse's coat. While they look odd, these markings are not the result of genetics and are not hereditable. Scars (from poor-fitting tack, etc) have a tendency to grow in with white hair as well and are likewise not hereditable. gulastra plume [named thus by Arabian breeders] - is an interesting manifestation of sabino that creates a light colored tail on an otherwise solid-colored horse. It is not to be confused with rabicano. Bloody shoulder markings - are random patches of color on grey horses that simply do not grey out. Despite the name, they can be found anywhere on a horse's body. Rabicano - is a pattern that is often confused with true dark-headed roan. The rabicano gene, however, is entirely seperate from the roan gene, though it does create a pattern of white hairs that can be similar to roan. It is usually manifested as a sprinkling of white hairs radiating out from a horse's flank, sometimes spreading across the barrel and onto the shoulder. Rabicanos also have a white-topped tail, known as a coon tail or skunk tail. There is some thought that rabicano may be tied to or somehow related to sabino as the rabicano pattern is often found in conjunction with sabino. Rabicano can act an any coat color. Sooty - is a common color modifier that can act on both red and black based coats. Sooty, also known as smutty or countershading, causes dark hairs to be spread throughout a horses coat, usually concentrated from the top of the back down. Sooty horses often have spectacular dappling because of the contrast of colors in their coats. Sometimes the sooty hairs are concentrated into lines resembling leg barring and dorsal stripes on non-dun horses. Some horses are so sooty that their true color is unrecognizable. For example, some sooty buckskins have been mistaken for dark bay or black horses, such as the pony pictured below on the right. Pangare - is a modifier that acts by lightening certain portions of a horse's coat, usually the muzzle, the belly, the inner forearms and thighs, and sometimes even the chest or around the eyes. When it acts on a chestnut coat, the horse usually will have a flaxen mane and tail. It can act on any color, and varies in intensity. It is often found in pony and draft breeds, such as Haflingers, Fjords, Exmoors, Brindling - Brindle is an unusual pattern of dark, vertical lines on a lighter-colored coat. Though it is seen in a variety of breeds, it is quite rare. The genetics of brindle are unknown, but according to Dr. Philip Sponenberg, the man who literally wrote the book on equine color genetics, "brindle seems to require sooty black countershading for its expression, and reorganizes sootiness into vertical stripes instead of a more uniform sprinkling of hairs." Reverse / White Brindling - Most brindle horses have dark stripes on a lighter body color, but a rare few have white stripes on a dark body color. While it is possible that white brindles are chimeric (and certainly some may be), the current thought is that the color is probably the result of a one-time mutation, probably of rabicano. Simply put, that means that the white brindling color is unlikely to be passed on to a horse's offspring, but the mutation may manifest in a different form resulting in unique offspring. Manchado - is a rare pinto pattern that has only cropped up in Argentina in a handful of horses from various breeds (Criollo, Hackney, Arab, TB, etc). It is thought to be the result of a very rare recessive gene, but it has not yet been mapped. (The pattern is not known to be related to other spotting patterns like the leopard complex.) chubari spots - are similar, but are usually larger, often egg-shaped and egg-sized. They seem to occur exclusively on grey coats, and of course, fade as the grey coat fades. Most grey TBs and grey horses with TB breeding can trace their spots back to The Tetrarch, a brilliant racehorse in England in the early 20th century. The spots are sometimes refered to as Tetrarch spots for that reason. bird catcher markings - small, round, white spots scattered throughout a horse's coat. In many cases, the spots appear and grow in number for a period of years, and then gradually fade away. Sometimes, the spots will persist throughout a horse's lifetime. bend or spots - They are random dark spots on a lighter coat, often seen on chestnuts and palominos. They vary in size, sometimes only dime-sized, and sometimes as big as an outspread hand. chimera - As discussed above (in the brindles section), chimeras are the result of the fusing of fraternal twins in utero resulting in 2 sets of DNA in 1 horse. The dual DNA is not always manifested as brindle. Often. it results in random patches of color like the horses below. somatic mutation - Somatic mutations are the result of a gene that is accidentally switched "off," often resulting in odd patches of color on an otherwise ordinary coat. EXTRAS-- Whorls, colloquially known as "cowlicks": divergent or convergent patches of hair found anywhere on the body but mostly on the head, neck, chest, belly, or just in front of the stifles. "Glass" eye, "Moon" eye, "China" eye, "Wall" eye or "Night" eye: A blue eye. Horses with blue eyes are less common than horses with brown eyes, but can see equally well. Chestnuts: A callous-like area on the inside of the horse's leg that has a subtle pattern, but one unique to each horse. It has been proposed that chestnuts could be used as a type of "fingerprint" to identify a horse, but the idea has failed to become widespread in practice, probably in part because the chestnut continually grows and sheds, making precise measurement a challenge. "Prophet's thumbs," or muscle dimples, are small indentations in the muscle, usually found on the horse's neck."Medicine hat": An unusual type of Pinto or Paint coloring where the horse has dark ears and poll (like a hat on the head), but surrounded on all sides of the head and neck by white. Shield: A dark Pinto marking where the horse has a dark colored chest, surrounded completely by white on the shoulders, legs, belly and neck. Occasionally used to describe the rarer example of a horse with a totally dark head surrounded completely by white. |