Jump to Game Window Jump to Game Window

Sometimes a horse has stray hairs of white or black mixed into their normal colors. This can be caused by one of three genes: roan, rabicano, or sooty.

A roan is a horse with white hairs mixed into their normal coat. They usually have a relatively even distribution of white hairs, with fewer on their head, legs, mane, and tail. This is different from a varnish roan appaloosa, which also shows a roaning pattern, as the varnish roan will have an uneven patchy distribution with prominent roaning on their head.

Unlike a grey horse that might have some hairs that are white and others that are not, a roan or rabicano will remain relatively the same color its entire life. A grey will progressively get more white hairs until it is pure white.

A rabicano, which is genetically separate from a classic roan, is a horse that only displays roaning on its belly.

Sooty, on the other hand, is a horse with black hairs mixed into its coat. These black hairs are usually more prevalent on the top of the horse, as though a bucket of ash were tossed over the animal.

Previous: Silver Dapple and Flaxen - Home - Next: Pintos and Paints
Jump to Complete Genetics
Chestnut

Chestnut is one of the most common horse coat colors, seen in almost every breed. Chestnut consists of a red or brownish coat, with a mane and tail the same or lighter in color than the coat.

Toggle color description
back to title back to silver dapple and flaxen next to pintos and paints skip to end
Initializing
This work is licensed to Jennifer Hoffman under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License. If you reuse this work, it must be attributed to www.jenniferhoffman.net.