Is my horse technically a tri-colour?!

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Mango_goose

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My cob is a stunning dun and white - real eye catching and looks like a very squat shire - as if he’s a 15hh version who just has little legs! However, every summer when it comes to clipping off his legs for the sunshine we notice that he has little black stripes on his legs! Only about an inch high, and a continuation of his hoof pattern. Obviously he has the expected black and white mane and tail from where the colour meets his mane/ tail, but other than that he looks like a regular dun and white - but technically would he be a tricolour?
 
At a push people can use tricolour to describe calico but most are just counting the number of colours they see on their horse 😅

It’s a dog thing not a horse thing.
 
ester said:
They use it incorrectly
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Then I guess we all use words incorrectly sometimes! No need to be a vocabulary police (and that’s coming from someone who has a BA in literature!)

Tri - coloured is just a way of distinguishing horses with three colours on their coats from other skewbalds and simply means “three colours”. It might not be a term acknowledged by breeders/ organisations but it’s a quick way of saying “a skewbald with three colours!”

You wouldn’t believe the amount of made up/ incorrect terminology I’ve heard from people! For example, there’s the Novel, the Novella, and the short story - but for some reason we now have the Novelette shoved in between novella and short story - a word a lot of my professors despised! It’s not actually a thing in the minds of most of my academic colleagues or professors but one that we have to live with all the same. It just means “not quite a novella, but not as short as a short story”

also, a lot of people use words like “cult” incorrectly (they actually mean sect!) that of course, no one would know unless they are specialised!
 
ester said:
At a push people can use tricolour to describe calico but most are just counting the number of colours they see on their horse 😅

It’s a dog thing not a horse thing.
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I’ve heard a lot of people use tri coloured to describe horses (mostly Cobs), whether or not is a technical term lol
 
criso said:
A lot of people describe bay and white as tri colour because you have the black and brown bits as well as the white.

However if you took the white away, you wouldn't describe a bay or buckskin as bicolour.
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I definitely think with buckskins/ bays it’s understood that they have black included into their markings, at least from most people lol - I did once meet a genuinely three-coloured skewbald, though - he had huge splotches of black and bay against white - he was truly striking but I can’t quite wrap my head around the genetics lol
 
Mango_goose said:
Tri - coloured is just a way of distinguishing horses with three colours on their coats from other skewbalds and simply means “three colours”. It might not be a term acknowledged by breeders/ organisations but it’s a quick way of saying “a skewbald with three colours!”
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It would be even quicker to say bay skewbald or dun skewbald which they usually are.
 
Mango_goose said:
I definitely think with buckskins/ bays it’s understood that they have black included into their markings, at least from most people lol - I did once meet a genuinely three-coloured skewbald, though - he had huge splotches of black and bay against white - he was truly striking but I can’t quite wrap my head around the genetics lol
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And very rare, I've never seen one.

Two people at current yard describe their bay and white horses as tri colour. One even got offended when I suggested the base colour was bay as she "doesn't like bay". Also used to ride a 'tri colour' at a riding school that was buckskin and white.
 
Look up calico and see why that might more correctly be described as tricolour that people using it incorrectly for a bay tobiano - which is what they are usually doing.
 
Mango_goose said:
Then I guess we all use words incorrectly sometimes! No need to be a vocabulary police (and that’s coming from someone who has a BA in literature!)

Tri - coloured is just a way of distinguishing horses with three colours on their coats from other skewbalds and simply means “three colours”. It might not be a term acknowledged by breeders/ organisations but it’s a quick way of saying “a skewbald with three colours!”

You wouldn’t believe the amount of made up/ incorrect terminology I’ve heard from people! For example, there’s the Novel, the Novella, and the short story - but for some reason we now have the Novelette shoved in between novella and short story - a word a lot of my professors despised! It’s not actually a thing in the minds of most of my academic colleagues or professors but one that we have to live with all the same. It just means “not quite a novella, but not as short as a short story”

also, a lot of people use words like “cult” incorrectly (they actually mean sect!) that of course, no one would know unless they are specialised!
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But you asked if 'tri-colour' is technically correct. The answer to your question is "No" because of the reasons given.
There is no need to be 'snotty' about it. Your question has been answered.
 
Mango_goose said:
Then I guess we all use words incorrectly sometimes! No need to be a vocabulary police (and that’s coming from someone who has a BA in literature!)

Tri - coloured is just a way of distinguishing horses with three colours on their coats from other skewbalds and simply means “three colours”. It might not be a term acknowledged by breeders/ organisations but it’s a quick way of saying “a skewbald with three colours!”

You wouldn’t believe the amount of made up/ incorrect terminology I’ve heard from people! For example, there’s the Novel, the Novella, and the short story - but for some reason we now have the Novelette shoved in between novella and short story - a word a lot of my professors despised! It’s not actually a thing in the minds of most of my academic colleagues or professors but one that we have to live with all the same. It just means “not quite a novella, but not as short as a short story”

also, a lot of people use words like “cult” incorrectly (they actually mean sect!) that of course, no one would know unless they are specialised!
Click to expand...
So if you're not interested in technical terms and the animal has three colours on it say it's tricolour if you want?

I call one of my mares white, she's not really she's eeAaGgLPLPPATN1PATN1 and the other "orange" when again she's not (EeAand1nd1)

🤷🤷🤷
 
ester said:
Look up calico and see why that might more correctly be described as tricolour that people using it incorrectly for a bay tobiano - which is what they are usually doing.
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Google definition states - Calico refers to a 'tri-coloured' coat (generally in cats).

My dad helped Gordon Rolley (spelling?) establish CHAPS back in the 80/90's. He also did a stint with the BSPA. He did an awful lot of judging and helped establish the stallion grading to stop the unregulated breeding. I did a lot of stewarding at shows and would often shout 'the tri coloured please' when a rider or handler couldn't see my gesture clearly - I never got shot from the ringside. The term tri-colour was used for anything that wasn't a standard black and white (piebald) or chestnut and white (skewbald). So dun and white would be tri-coloured and so was bay and white. It was all very straightforward for everyone to understand. Since then the both organisations have evolved and we (the uk) have taken on lots of americanism's and have more of an understanding of genetics, so terminology has changed.

My view on this is (as I think I've probably said before on the forum) that calling a horse a tri-colour isn't 'incorrect' as such - it's just old fashioned or traditional.

OP what is written in your ponies passport?
 
I don't have a picture of this horse, but someone I knew had a horse who was several colours. There were solid dark patches, there were solid white patches, there were solid grey patches and flecky patches. I remember helping her with the description for the horse passport when those came in, we had to write 'more than three colours' in it as we couldn't think what else to put. Drawing the markings took ages too!
Thinking back I suppose she could have been a roan skewbald, that might explain the different colours.
 
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