Small rant... Palominos are NOT coloured!!

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SatsumaGirl

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I'm just musing here and thought I'd ask how other people felt on the subject; personally the following is a pet hate of mine.

My sister took her little filly out to a local show today (nothing major) and amongst other classes, entered her in the 'Coloured, Spotted and Palomino' inhand class.

Now, I can sort of understand coloureds and spotteds going in together (though that still slightly annoys me) but to just include palominos? I've heard that some places also class 'duns' (well, buckskins) as coloureds and allow them to partake. I'd love it if someone entered a 'dun' class with their black or red dun- or even their bay dun, only to be told it wasn't allowed as it wasn't, in reality, a buckskin. ;)

And if palominos are allowed, why not cremellos, smokey creams, perlinos etc? It just seems nonsensical to me.

I know, I know; it's only a bit of fun and I shouldn't take it too personally.

Like I say, just interested to hear if it's only me that's so easily annoyed. *winks* I think I need to get out more! ;)

Also, is it the same up and down the country and is it a 'thing', or is the idea of grouping pallys regional or few and far between? I wonder who came up with the idea or was it, back in the day(sort of historically, so to speak), people classed pallys as 'coloured' as they weren't perhaps the norm compared to the bays, greys, chestnuts etc. Who knows!
 
A lot of local shows class anything that isnt grey bay or chestnut as odd coloured and so eligible for the coloured class
My pet hate is coloured cobs in the mountain and moorland class and vanners and show ponies for added variety I would guess it is to get more entries I also see plaited palominos this is another pet hate they are supposed to be shown natural with long flowing creamy white manes and tails Silly old traditionalist that I am
 
I did not know that about palominos. Surely it's down to type, though, as to how they're turned out, plaited or not?

Show ponies in M&M? :-/

Oh well, I bet a bigger pet hate is if that show pony then goes on to get placed quite highly! ;)
 
This is, so far as I know, the only place in the world that has "coloured" classes (you can't even call horses that in North America for obvious reasons!!) and I find the whole concept bizarre. What possible difference could the horse's colour make? Re putting spotted horses and pinto horses in the same class, I find that even more bizarre. The two breeds or spotted horses are HUGELY different types and the main types of coloured horses also run the gamut - how can you possibly compare them by any standard? I can see proper coloured showing classes as they are basically the usual showing types, just with multicoloured hides. But the local show "anything goes" classes confound me.

But, as you say, it's just a bit of fun and gives people either another class to do or somewhere to go if they feel their horse will be discriminated against in an open showing class
 
No you are not the only place in the world with "coloured" classes. Australia has them too. The Coloured Horse and Pony Society of Australia classes all of these as "coloured":
Pintos
All variations of any colour and white - inlcuding frame overo, splash, sabino, tobiano or tovero.

Dilutes
Palomino
Buckskin
Silver
Champagne
Dun
Pearl

Double Dilutes
Cremello
Perlino
and any other combination horses with 2 of the above mentioned dilute genes (ie Silver and Palomino, Dunskin, Dunalino, Silver and Champagne etc etc etc)

Broken Coloured Dilutes

Spotted Dilute (ie Palouse, Appaloosa, Sportaloosa and Spotted Miniature plus any other above mentioned dilute gene

Paint/Pinto Dilute (ie Sabino, Overo, Splash, and Tobiano or any combination thereof plus any other above mentioned dilute gene)

Pintaloosa Dilute (combination of spotted and paint/pinto with a dilute gene)

*APPENDIX REGISTRY FOR ALL BROKEN COLOURED DILUTE BRED Animals (ie solid coloured progeny) Please note * Solid coloured horses of spotted breeding should have such information recorded on their registration information*

Roans
Blue/ Black Roan
Red/Chestnut Roan
Bay Roan
Broken Coloured Roans
(as for Broken Coloured Dilutes but with a Roan Gene instead of a Dilute Gene)

Spotteds
*APPENDIX REGISTRY FOR SOLID VARIATIONS OF THE SPOTTED WHO SHOW NO SPOTTED CHARACTERISTICS * Such information of spotted breeding to be recorded on their registration information *

Pintaloosa
Combination of Paint/Pinto and Spotted Genes

*APPENDIX REGISTRY FOR SOLID PROGENY OF PINTALOOSA BREEDING

Brindles
;):mad:

As far as I am concerned "coloured" = skewbald or piebald!
Spotted is different, as is paint bred (being "breeds" rather than just a colour. You can after all have solid coloured paints and spotted bred animals, although that also does my head in!)
Buckskins/duns/palominos are dilutes and should (perhaps) have their own class, although a good buckskin/pally can more than hold their own in open company.
And for the life of me I cannot call roans (of any variety) coloured. Half the M&M ponies I used to know where roan of some sort or another.
 
Oooooh, this brings back memories of the worst class I've ever had to judge - a huge (20+) 'coloured class' at a local RC show. Everything from 11.2hh bay roan plaited dainty show pony to HW hogged cob with various palomino welshes and 17hh+ 7/8th TBs. A few traditionals too.

I ended up having to judge it on basic conformation and the individual shows as the ring was tiny and the committee wouldn't allow me to split the class in case it caused clashes later on. I judged 8 other classes in that ring that day and it was the only one that gave me grief as the trads expected to win as did the TB types as did the pretty ponies...

I wouldn't have minded so much but there were classes for palominos/duns/trads/ riding horses/ various weight hunters later in the day and I judged them then too!
 
It happens here too but the reasoning is that palominos are often judged on their colour, as are pintos, Appys etc. If it were my horse, I would enter the ring of whatever type best represented my horse and ignore the colour thing completely. Personally I just don't get that as a criteria for judging a horse, but that's JMO.

Looking on the positive side though, "colour" is no longer looked down on as much as it used to be in the old school.
 
I was thinking about this the other day when a friend entered her halflinger in a coloured class, saying she is a palomino. I thought halflingers were chestnut with a flaxen mane and tail so technically not coloured even if the class includes palominos. She came 3rd though so I guess the judges didn't mind but think I would have been miffed had I been showing one of the coloureds placed below her.
 
How about people showing haflingers in a dedicated palomino class - and managing to get a passport overstamped by the palomino society to allow affiliated showing :D

For me, it doesn't bother me overly as it means that people get to join in a class that often is the only option available to them at a show. Like foreign breed classes (I have been up against anything from an American Shetland to a Jutland).
 
Nugget La Poneh said:
How about people showing haflingers in a dedicated palomino class - and managing to get a passport overstamped by the palomino society to allow affiliated showing :D

For me, it doesn't bother me overly as it means that people get to join in a class that often is the only option available to them at a show. Like foreign breed classes (I have been up against anything from an American Shetland to a Jutland).
Click to expand...


Ha ha... See my post above..snap!
 
TBH its not really much different than an Arab class, which is for pure and part bred's. You can have you small show pony, large riding horse, with minimal amount of arab, your anglo's and then the purebreds.
 
True - haffy's don't have the cream gene, so aren't pally. They do have pangare though, but if you say that pangare is included in this loosely defined 'coloured' class, then that means that Exmoors etc... can enter it too. ;)
 
windand rain said:
A lot of local shows class anything that isnt grey bay or chestnut as odd coloured and so eligible for the coloured class
My pet hate is coloured cobs in the mountain and moorland class and vanners and show ponies for added variety I would guess it is to get more entries I also see plaited palominos this is another pet hate they are supposed to be shown natural with long flowing creamy white manes and tails Silly old traditionalist that I am
Click to expand...

My palomino is a WB, so not exactly "traditional". he would look ridiculous with a long main and tail :D
 
I suppose you have to think of where coloured classes came from. When I was a kid and had a skewbald pony because it was the cheapest horse you could get, you couldn't show is other classes. You would automatically go to the bottom of the line because of the colour even if the horse was a good example of the type. Palominos, Buckskins/dun weren't looked down on in the same way.

That's why specific classes were started, to give people a class they could enter. At some point some venues added classes for dilutes and now they get combined where shows are trying to cut down the number of classes or don't think they'll get enough entries.

I'm not sure how much things have changed as look at the line up of any riding horse or hunter class or the pony equivalents, it's still a sea of bay chestnut and grey.
 
'odd coloured' round here is usually a good place to put horses that don't really fit into any other classes and are unlikely to win anything elsewhere, so I'm all for it! It would palomino, buckskin, roans, spotty, cremello etc.

It sucks when you have a nice horse that doesn't fit well into categories, it sucks even more when you literally could not enter any classes even if you just want to go for a day out.
 
windand rain said:
A lot of local shows class anything that isnt grey bay or chestnut as odd coloured and so eligible for the coloured class
My pet hate is coloured cobs in the mountain and moorland class and vanners and show ponies for added variety I would guess it is to get more entries I also see plaited palominos this is another pet hate they are supposed to be shown natural with long flowing creamy white manes and tails Silly old traditionalist that I am
Click to expand...

Totally agree! My friend told me he had won the M&M class, which mountain or moorland did that come off I asked... Its a cob ... Ok what if I show my M&M as a cob... No you can't its a M&M
 
I can see both sides of the argument. From the local show organisers perspective they don't really want to run classes with only 2 or 3 competitors and tbh I would much rather enter a class with more entries than just me and one other.
On the other hand, how you begin to judge a class with an extremely diverse large number of entries, must be a nightmare.
All I could suggest is that if there were numbers to warrant a class split then judge the coloured, then odd coloured seperately.
It's the same with the M&M. Often split large/small breeds when it would be fairer depending on the entries to split Welsh and other breeds. Certainly at the show I went to yesterday it would have made more sense. I wasn't showing there so just an observation !
 
Whereas we have a problem because our registered pure-bred Appaloosa is solid coloured (roaning out now) and is not able to be shown in the local coloured and spotted classes, which made it difficult when we were looking for somewhere to give her showing experience. Fortunately the rising 4 yr old part-bred Appy *is* spotted, so she will get plenty of local experience before she goes to the breed shows.
There are very few shows with classes for Appaoolsas across the country which are not run by the 2 breed societies, unlike classes for coloured horses and ponies.
 
Hippona said:
I entered my dun in a local show....coloured class, simply because we were there and were allowed to do so.

Every other animal in the ring was a " typical" coloured.....so we looked a bit odd.

But we won ;)
Click to expand...

This happened to me, but I was one of the traditional coloureds. The class was split into coloured and odd coloured, I beat about 7 others to win the coloured section. There was only one odd coloured, so she won that section. But there was only one trophy, and the judge gave it to the dun. Humph!:(
 
OwnedbyJoe said:
No you are not the only place in the world with "coloured" classes. Australia has them too. The Coloured Horse and Pony Society of Australia classes all of these as "coloured":
Pintos
All variations of any colour and white - inlcuding frame overo, splash, sabino, tobiano or tovero.

Dilutes
Palomino
Buckskin
Silver
Champagne
Dun
Pearl

Double Dilutes
Cremello
Perlino
and any other combination horses with 2 of the above mentioned dilute genes (ie Silver and Palomino, Dunskin, Dunalino, Silver and Champagne etc etc etc)

Broken Coloured Dilutes

Spotted Dilute (ie Palouse, Appaloosa, Sportaloosa and Spotted Miniature plus any other above mentioned dilute gene

Paint/Pinto Dilute (ie Sabino, Overo, Splash, and Tobiano or any combination thereof plus any other above mentioned dilute gene)

Pintaloosa Dilute (combination of spotted and paint/pinto with a dilute gene)

*APPENDIX REGISTRY FOR ALL BROKEN COLOURED DILUTE BRED Animals (ie solid coloured progeny) Please note * Solid coloured horses of spotted breeding should have such information recorded on their registration information*

Roans
Blue/ Black Roan
Red/Chestnut Roan
Bay Roan
Broken Coloured Roans
(as for Broken Coloured Dilutes but with a Roan Gene instead of a Dilute Gene)

Spotteds
*APPENDIX REGISTRY FOR SOLID VARIATIONS OF THE SPOTTED WHO SHOW NO SPOTTED CHARACTERISTICS * Such information of spotted breeding to be recorded on their registration information *

Pintaloosa
Combination of Paint/Pinto and Spotted Genes

*APPENDIX REGISTRY FOR SOLID PROGENY OF PINTALOOSA BREEDING

Brindles
;):mad:

As far as I am concerned "coloured" = skewbald or piebald!
Spotted is different, as is paint bred (being "breeds" rather than just a colour. You can after all have solid coloured paints and spotted bred animals, although that also does my head in!)
Buckskins/duns/palominos are dilutes and should (perhaps) have their own class, although a good buckskin/pally can more than hold their own in open company.
And for the life of me I cannot call roans (of any variety) coloured. Half the M&M ponies I used to know where roan of some sort or another.
Click to expand...

Cool. Learn something new every day. :) That does look like a version of the UK system but again, how is it judged? Given the rules above it seems mostly a class for stock type individuals (which is more like the American model, where colour is linked to registry and mostly stock breeds) - where do Knabstuppers and feathered cob types fit into that line up? Are there different classes for different types? And how is "Appendix registry" defined? Similarly to how the stock breeds do it? What makes a horse not an Appendix registered horse, but a member of the full book?
 
What I don't get is when they lump all types in together like the class I did yesterday - "coloured" class so half of us in the class had sport horse type coloureds and the others were gypsy cob types. How can you judge such totally different types?

What I wonder is, with my one - she's fading out, so she was born skewbald but her patches have now faded to a faded blue colour. If she loses the blue completely she would then look totally white. Her passport says she is coloured though so would she still be eligible...? I dont really get coloured classes, think I might stick to the other normal ones that I do understand!
 
Traditionally palominos were shown for their colour and were only judged on their colour and had to have long manes and tails now palominos are shown in just about every class and can be in plaited in those classes but they do seem to be the underdogs in all but arab and welsh classes. Palomino riding horses are often down the line and Hunters, hacks and riding horses can only be brown (chestnut, bay brown) or grey if you look at county show results. Traditional hunter judges will only pick bay with very few white points so you may get away with a star but not much else. If pushed they may chose a grey or chestnut but almost all are bay with very little white on them
 
to be honest i get fed up of the traditional coloureds doing everything from cob classes to hunter in hand, got beaten at a show the other day in the hunter in hand by 3 coloured cobs - now had it been the in hand cob fair do's - but the in hand hunter!! think they won just about every class and the championship - so if they are that good why the need for coloured classes? think we will need classes so for solid coloured horses only :-)
 
Totally agree that generally bays seem to be favoured in hunter classes etc. but so is size. Usually the bigger the better in hunter classes I've noticed (if its just a bog standard "hunter" class and not split into heavy etc.). I think my 15.3hh pretty much white (with faded blue bits) will have to work twice as hard to do well above anything bay in a hunter or working hunter class...!
 
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