I hate "i hate chestnuts"

[skint1]

I've handled a few chestnut mares, 3 of them TBs, and on the ground anyway they have all been as sweet as can be. It's a silly rumour, tis the bay mares that you have to watch!

 

[rachelha]

I personally go for temp and potential rather than colour, but have ended up with a chestnut tb mare. she is a sensitive little thing and does get upset over little things, but she is so funny and has such a unique personality. amazing to ride (if a little 'fresh' most of the time), shes just full of character
she is, however, an injury magnet!!

 

[BuBbleMooJim]

Tuh, this is almost as annoying as the Arab thread, I had a bright orange(parents palomino) chestnut 3/4 Arab mare, and she was the most chilled out horse I have ever known, she gashed her leg on a sheep hurdle(metal pen thing) admittedly she was exiting her field at the time! The vet stitched it no sedative, no painkillers, and she was sound until it healed(which it did in about 14 days) and out hunting again a month after, hardly noticed the scar. and now I have a Bay, I always said I would never get one as they are a boring colour! But they broke the mold when they made her!

And as far as Bays go, although I love mine dearly, I have to agree with Skint1

 

[Umbongo]

Agree that temperament, potential etc should be more important than colour. If I had to be picky I've never really had a thing for the normal wishy washy orange chestnuts and would rather a nice deep red/liver chestnut or a very bright orange....however it is the same with bays, rather a bright or dark dapple bay than a dull bay etc. Of course so long as the horse is lovely it really doesn't matter.

I was at a yard once which had many lovely bay horses. A chestnut colt with 4 white legs was born one day and the owner told me how disgusting his colour was....ermm...you have just bred a beautiful and healthy colt and you are disgusted by his colour!!! Grrrr

 

[missyme10]

I love chestnut horses but sadly dont have one

At the moment my riding horse is coloured (predominantly white) and my daughters is grey and it does my nut in keeping them clean.

So when we went out looking for youngsters to be our horses of the future, we wanted the right horses, but also wanted chestnut, bay or black - simply because we prefer to spend out time riding rather than constant bathing.

Its just fluke we ended up with two bays as they were the ones we took a shine to, but I wish one was chestnut as I love the way they tend to sparkle in the sunshine, I think they can be so beautiful x

 

[Millyard Rejects]

I had ex racing tb chestnut mare- loved her to bits!
she was so good i could clip and pull her mane in stable no headcollar on while she ate her hay! the bay at the time was the oversensitive one!

Currently have mini shetland chestnut filly,real livewire but not nasty or neurotic! and a bay gelding and a black and white gelding-the boys if anything are the sensitive silly ones not the girly!

 

[MardyMare]

I have 2 chestnut mares (one TB one AES) and a chestnut gelding (TB). I too am a 'chestnut'. The AES mare is as hard as nails - the other (TB) would melt in slight rain. The gelding is a mix of the two I have very low pain threshold and bruise easily. I dont want another chestnut but only because after 10 years now I would just like something different.

 

[Kenzo]

I prefer chestnuts to bays, I'm a sucker for chestnuts TB's as well.

 

[MagicMelon]

It has actually been proven that the ginger gene causes neuroses in animals. Particularly horses and dogs - think red setters.

I've heard similar as well. Can't remember why, something about the pigmentation and genes or something. I'm afraid I'm not a chestnut fan. Had a chestnut and his attitude sucked and at shows, the naughty horse in the practice ring is more often than not a chestnut! Whereas you very rarely see a naughty grey...!! I wouldn't turn one down to buy purely based on it being chestnut but I would be very wary!

 

[cobgirlie]

I hold my hands up and admit I would have once said I didn't want or like a chestnut horse!!!!! BUT the last year I've met at least 4 mares and gelding's I'd happily hand over good money for so I'm completely turned now!!! I even heard myself gushing over a Chestnut mare TB the other day!!!

 

[Pipkin]

I also hate, 'I hate chestnuts' people, especially the, 'I hate all chestnut mares' variety.

I was once out hacking and a car stopped right next to us, just so the driver (snobby woman) could slag my horse off, purely because of her colour. I would like to point out that said horse was behaving perfectly at the time and I'd never met the woman before, so she hadn't ever seen the horse misbehave in any way. Yes, she can be spooky but I don't think that a lower pain thresh-hold would cause her to spook at flappy plastic, alpacas and pheasants.


To top it all off, I have used my mare as a hacking companion/confidence booster/nanny to a horse that was hit by a car and also with a freshly backed horse. Both of those horses came on no end with my mare's help.

What about genetically chestnut horses with a modifier gene (eg palomino, red dun or chesnut based greys) or horses with one black gene and one chestnut gene? What does having one copy of the chestnut gene do as opposed to having two copies?

She`s lovely!!!
Another quash to the 'ginger mares' stereotype, A couple on my yard have a ginger arab mare with a wall eye she`s as sane as they come and safe as houses.....

 

[lara b]

I didn't really want to buy a chestnut......guess what I bought (hint look at avatar!)....and I love him!

 

[Hippona]

I love chestnuts....the brighter the better. I have owned one in the past- he was lovely.

I would have liked a chestnut arab, but ended up with (yet) another grey.....

I don't dislike any colour in particular, but I do find bays a bit boring ( sorry) only becasue on my last yard one group was all bay....think 7 identical horses in the field, I couldn't tell them apart

 

[Bug2007]

I love my orange horse but he is Nerotic as anything i've ever met, when in one of those moods he can't calm back down from it, he is a bit of a danger to himself and me when like it.

Wouldn't change him though.

 

[blackcob]

There is nothing wrong with saying 'I don't like chestnuts'. I don't, what do you want me to do, lie?

Then again I am completely open to the fact that some people don't like black horses either. Or cobs, or coloureds, roans, arabs...

I don't like fish, either. Or marmite. Or terriers. Or patterned carpet. Or those solar powered garden lights. I'm terribly racist, you see.

 

[Taffyhorse]

I love my chestnut boy with his four flashy white socks and blaze on his very sweet looking face - which he puts to good use conning extra rations out of people!

He isn't neurotic but can definitely be a bit 'precious' and his pain threshold is about 0.00000000001 (with an accompanying 'wounded, I'm dying' face) - but I think he'd be the same if he had turquoise polka dots, he's just a big fairy!!

On a different note - he always changes his coat really late. His winter coat is only just through (and I suspect more fur to follow) and he never really gets his summer coat until May. I read in Paul Nicholls biography that 'chestnuts are later changing their coats'.

Any thoughts on that? Do others ginger beasties also change their coats late?

 

[sjmcc]

i have to admit its a colour i never realy took notice of or liked . until i was looking TO BUY another horse turned up at the yard in ireland and there stood my lad it was like wow love at 1st hes a chestnut with dun dapples hes stunning and admired were ever he goes yeeee chestnuts all the way i now look at every chestnut out there

 

[Nats_uk]

I always said I never like chestnuts but I ended up with a 16.3hh chestnut WB (in sig)
Yes he was spooky at times but he had the sweetest nature, small children could handle him and ride him, I even had my friends dog lead him in from the field once!!! (leadrope in dogs mouth - in fairness I did keep hand on headcollar just in case)

He was very handsome

easy to keep clean and shiny and now I would happily get another one

 

[jenbleep]

Given a choice I would always have a bay. I don't particularly dislike chestnuts, in fact Antifaz is as orange as they get, but bay is just prettier and there are loads of fabulous bay stallions for PF, so why should I go for a chestnut?
Are you being bay-ist?

I agree with you PF! Bays to me just seem a bit...can I say it...classier! Shock! Just my opinion you understand

I don't dislike chestnuts but I would choose another colour if I did have a choice to pick

 

[cindars]

Had grey, bay and three chestnuts. Loved them all. But the chestnuts glow in the sun don't they almost bronze sometimes. At one time our yard only had chestnuts welsh cobs and arabs.

 

[Meowy Catkin]

There is nothing wrong with saying 'I don't like chestnuts'. I don't, what do you want me to do, lie?

Then again I am completely open to the fact that some people don't like black horses either. Or cobs, or coloureds, roans, arabs...

I don't like fish, either. Or marmite. Or terriers. Or patterned carpet. Or those solar powered garden lights. I'm terribly racist, you see.

No, there is nothing wrong with you not liking a particular coat colour.

However for some reason many people feel the need to tell me on a regular basis that everything my mare does wrong is because of her colour (or even when she's not doing anything wrong, that she's about to do something wrong because she's chestnut).

It wears and grinds you down, then becomes a raw point. If she spooks at a pheasant I get, 'well you would buy a chestnut', if a piebald spooks at the same bird it's 'oh, did the horrid pheasant scare you?' Drives me bloody potty. As I said earlier, I've had total strangers comment negatively about my horse because they are anti-chestnut. Why can't people just be a little bit kinder and a little bit less predudiced or say nothing?

 

[XxhorzezxX]

thanks for your replies i just dont get it but maybe things will change!?!?!?

 

[Achinghips]

I have a chestnut. I hate "I hate chestnuts", but I don't like my chestnut much, so where does that leave me?

 

[Chumsmum]

I'm a ginger - just reading that technical stuff, does that mean I should have a high or low pain threshold? I would say I've got a high pain threshold - have lots of bruises but can never remember how the bruise got there

I also have a ginger boy, he is laid back cool dude most of the time.

I get slightly upset when I hear people saying if they have children they hope they don't have red hair, I'm proud of my colour and it doesn't show up the grey...

Picture of my lovely boy, I think his colour is beautiful.

 

[Oberon]

It's linked to a lower pain tolerance due to naturally lower levels of vitamin K. I can't find the exact article now but there is a little in wiki about it...

"The unexpected relationship of hair color to pain tolerance appears to be because redheads have a mutation in a hormone receptor that can apparently respond to at least two different hormones: the skin pigmentation hormone melanocyte-stimulating hormone, and the pain relieving hormone known as endorphins. (These hormones are both derived from the same precursor molecule, POMC, and are structurally similar.) Specifically, redheads have a mutated MC1R gene, which produces a mutated MC1R receptor, also known as the melanocortin-1 receptor.[42] Melanocytes, which are cells that produce pigment in skin and hair, use the MC1R receptor to recognize and respond to melanocyte-stimulating hormone from the anterior pituitary gland. Melanocyte-stimulating hormone normally stimulates melanocytes to make black eumelanin, but if the melanocytes have a mutated MC1R receptor, they will make reddish pheomelanin instead. The MC1R receptor also occurs in the brain, where it is one of a large set of POMC-related receptors that are apparently involved not only in responding to MSH, but also in responses to endorphins and possibly other POMC-derived hormones.[42] Though the details are not clearly understood, it appears that there is some "cross talk" between the POMC hormones that may explain the link between red hair and pain tolerance."

Genes can make us 'predisposed' to something. It doesn't mean it will definitely happen, but it will happen more often than in someone without the gene...

Codswallop.

Pure scientific conjecture.

And I'd take any science on Wiki with a pinch of salt.

My first 'pony on loan' (when I was 13 years old) was a 15.2hh chestnut TB mare! She was fab.

Then my first pony (at 14 years old) was a 4 year old, chestnut, Arab gelding.

He is now nearly 25 and he has been my soul mate these last 20 years.

His genes make him pre-disposed to being beautiful and altogether wonderful

 

[RunToEarth]

There are plenty of people who do not like certain horse colours/types/genders- to "hate" a person for hating chestnuts is extremely childish and very stupid.
I wouldn't have a mare unless it was particularly special- I just don't get on with them.
My OH has a wonderful chestnut gelding, but it is a typical windy TB and very accident prone, he loves it, I don't get along with it, as a rule I do not get on with chestnuts- my liver chestnut is the absolute bain of my life.
My OH is also chestnut, and he too is neurotic and accident prone, it is something in the ginger gene- try having a ginger OH and a ginger ptper at the same time, it's a struggle...

 

[3DE]

Codswallop.

Pure scientific conjecture.

And I'd take any science on Wiki with a pinch of salt.

If you'd read my post properly you would have read that I couldn't find the article but there was something on wiki about it. As a Biomedical Scientist specialising in Haematology and Transfusion it is something I know rather a bit about. How are you qualified to comment in such a derogatory manner?

 

[Oberon]

I am a nurse, not a scientist or a genius but I am someone who doesn't believe everything I read from someone with a PhD and no life experience.

I am not having a pop at you personally, so calm down.

 

[Meowy Catkin]

There are plenty of people who do not like certain horse colours/types/genders- to "hate" a person for hating chestnuts is extremely childish and very stupid.

I'm not the childish one. I have never slagged a horse off to their owner's face based purely on the horse's outer appearance. I have never stopped my car to do that to a stranger who was merrily plodding along on their well behaved horse and was causing me no problems.

I hate that they can't keep their predudices to themselves.

I hate that they feel the need to be so mean.

I hate that they make me feel shitty.

As I said, it has taken may comments from many people to grind me down to the point where I cannot stand any anti-chestnut comment. I used to deal with it in a jokey way, 'Oh well, at leat she doesn't show the mud' etc...

I have no problem with people liking one colour over another, or indeed disliking a particular colour but there is no need to be rude about it.

Rant over!

 

[3DE]

I am a nurse, not a scientist or a genius but I am someone who doesn't believe everything I read from someone with a PhD and no life experience.

What a very patronising thing to say - aimed at me or not... I kinda shows you intellect in a bad way. Statements like that can really make someone look foolish