How do horses see colour?

McNally

McNally

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I just saw a thread on here asking what colour jumps peoples horses are scared of.
Last night a livery at my yard went into HUGE looonnngggg..............detail about how horses are colour blind.
Now i know for a fact my old pony would spook quite violently at certain colour cars (the actual colour varied for some reason!)
Eg- for a fortnight or so small red cars would be a problem then it would swap to white vans!!!
No reason, it was just they way he was- But surely horses cant be colour blind????
 
Horses don't see colours as we do. All is explained below (thanks to Wiki) :D

Horses are not color blind, but have two-color, or dichromatic vision. This means that they see two of the basic three wavelengths of visible light, compared to the three-color trichromic vision of most humans. In other words, horses naturally see the blue and green colors of the spectrum and the color variations based upon them, but cannot distinguish red. Research indicates that their color vision is somewhat like red-green color blindness in humans. This means that certain colors, especially red and related colors, appear more green.[16]

Dichromatic vision is the result of the animal having two types of cones in their eyes: a short-wavelength sensitive cone (S) that is optimal at 428 nm (pastel bluish-gray), and a middle-to-long wavelength sensitive cone (M/L) which sees optimally at 539 nm, more of a yellowish color.[17] This structure may be because horses are most active at dawn and dusk, a time when the rods of the eye are especially useful.

The horse's limited ability to see color is sometimes taken into consideration when designing obstacles for the horse to jump, since the animal will have a harder time distinguishing between the obstacle and the ground if the two are only a few shades off. Therefore, most people paint their jump rails a different color from the footing or the surrounding landscape so that the horse may better judge the obstacle on the approach. Studies have shown that horses are less likely to have a rail down when the jump is painted with two or more contrasting colors, rather than one single color [18] It is especially difficult for horses to distinguish between yellows and greens.
Click to expand...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equine_vision#Color_vision
 
A friend of mine has three horses and each horse eats out of a different color bucket. I think they're red, blue and yellow.

Anyway, each horse ignores buckets that are not their color. It's very cute. They may not see them exactly the way we do, but they recognize differences.
 
The horses at my old RS would always lick and bite me when wearing my purple winter coat but at no other time. Someone there said horses are colour-blind totally but I could't believe it.n
 
I knew they weren't colour blind but didn't realise it was liek red-green.

Perhaps thats why some horses spook at red fences as they may blend with the grass? :p
 
the horse i ride hates pink, my dressage tests are in a pink folder and every time i bring it to the stables he stands there looking worried and blowing through his nose or walks off!

oh and white jumps, last time i went to a show there was a all white spread, including white fillers :eek:
 
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