What color is he?

[weimerh]

Hi, I have had this little guy since mid August, the rescue called him one color, the vet that pulled his coggins called him a second color and the vet that did his dental a third! I’m just curious, he’s cute no mater what. 9 years old.

 

[Minimor]

He is a silver dapple pinto (silver black pinto if you prefer).

 

[Cayuse]

He's cute, too!

 

[elizabeth.conder]

Yup 100% silver dapple pinto (tobiano pattern). Looks like he has some lacing on his back as well. A lot of people call them chocolate palominos which is not a genetics term. Unfortunately a lot of vets are not well versed in horse color genetics).

 

[Abby P]

Yep - my vet calls Rowan a chestnut pinto (he's a silver bay or "red chocolate" if he were a big horse).

Your guy is super cute and I love his coloring!

 

[chandab]

So what colors has he been called? I'm just curious who said what?
As already stated, he's silver black (silver dapple), likely tobiano.

 

[Standards Equine]

I was asked what colour Jasmine is and I wasn't sure what to tell them either! I thought a silver palomino was probably the closest, but what is she correctly called?

 

[chandab]

I was asked what colour Jasmine is and I wasn't sure what to tell them either! I thought a silver palomino was probably the closest, but what is she correctly called?

Do you have a picture in better lighting? this pic is too dark to be sure. Likely silver black, but the picture is too dark to be sure.

 

[AKSThomp]

Black silver tobiano. He's super cute!

 

[AKSThomp]

Yup 100% silver dapple pinto (tobiano pattern). Looks like he has some lacing on his back as well. A lot of people call them chocolate palominos which is not a genetics term. Unfortunately a lot of vets are not well versed in horse color genetics).

Right - A lot of vets really don't know color at all. I'm lucky - my vets all know what a genetics junkie I am and defer to my labeling, since I've been mixed into the color genetics world for so long. I try to help people get out of the habit of calling this color chocolate and/or chocolate palomino. There are to many disparate colors that people label that way that don't have anything to do with each other genetically speaking. My Silver black Welsh mare is registered as "silver cream" though she doesn't have a cream gene, nor does silver show up on a red base coat, as cream would. Plus, she doesn't even look like a silver black that carries cream would, as they get that "wet brown paper bag" color to them because of the dampening effect cream has on silver's expression. So while you can't tell when a black has a cream gene, you often can tell when a silver black does. The mane and tail will often be self colored instead of a frosty Ombre, and their hide will be more uniformly "mud brownish" rather than sepia/gunmetal/pewter/dove/putty colored.

 

[Standards Equine]

@chandab heck yeah I do!!!!

 

[AKSThomp]

I was asked what colour Jasmine is and I wasn't sure what to tell them either! I thought a silver palomino was probably the closest, but what is she correctly called?

Jasmine is also a silver black/black silver - either is correct. Silver palomino would be considered an incorrect term, genetically speaking, because silver will not show on a true palomino (red base with a cream gene), and the cream gene has a dampening effect on the expression of the silver gene, changing the frosty ash Ombre mane and tail to more self colored, and the body to a wet paper bag color.

 

[chandab]

@chandab heck yeah I do!!!!

Definitely silver black (silver dapple), pretty classic expression of it.

 

[Standards Equine]

@AKSThomp and @chandab thank you both so much for the clarification! Now I'll have the right answer when I'm asked next.

 

[MerMaeve]

I also have a Silver Dapple (what her old breeder called her color), but she has more Appaloosa spots than most, I think.

 

[Trhewett]

Thank you for this post. I have been wondering what my mare was and thought maybe grulla. I now think she’s a silver dapple pinto tobiano. What color is my stallion? Chestnut pinto tobiano?

 

[elizabeth.conder]

Thank you for this post. I have been wondering what my mare was and thought maybe grulla. I now think she’s a silver dapple pinto tobiano. What color is my stallion? Chestnut pinto tobiano?

The mare is a silver dapple pinto and the stallion is a red pinto. Both appear to have the tobiano pattern but I’d test to be sure. Particularly if you breed them. Don’t want to change a LWO foal.

 

[weimerh]

Thank you all for your help! One more question, he has some lacy looking white markings that I honestly thought could be scaring from rain rot given his rescue background. Is this a part of the coat pattern?

 

[Silver City Heritage Farmstead]

The lacing on his back is probably just that. Lacing shows up on both solid and broken-coated (pinto) horses.

If you're planning on breeding these two, in addition to LWO I'd test for silver. Silver *hides* on chestnut so you wouldn't know just by looking. I've seen quite a few chestnut pinto appearing horses that were silver bay. Also, homozygous silver is now proven to be associated with Multiple Congenital Ocular Anomolies (MCOA). Here is a link to the UC-Davis color testing information:

https://vgl.ucdavis.edu/test/silver
I know that I harp on this subject a LOT. I have a friend who bred Shetlands and focused on silver, so I saw it in many forms. I also saw the eye issues, before research had established the link between silver and MCOA. Save yourself the heartache and expense and please test. (For dwarfism as well, although I'll save that soapbox for another thread.)

 

[weimerh]

So what colors has he been called? I'm just curious who said what?
As already stated, he's silver black (silver dapple), likely tobiano.

Brown and white, grey and white and buckskin and white. None of which seems to be right