He really looks brown rather than bay there.
I figured my horse was dark bay turned out he's brown, he has black legs, mane and tail very dark brown body and light brown muzzle and under bellySo.... Brown horses can have black points too? Is there no such thing as a dark bay? This whole colour thing is seriously complicated!
I still have no idea what colour our 'blue blagdon' cob is
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I have a grey Eriskay (that's her nose in the pic), a bay connie, a black Shetland and my beautiful little black dun girlie pictured
minkymoo with his foal coat how did he ever get passported as black? so brown based grulla technically?
taraj I vote bay roan tobiano possibly with splash
That's really interestingOK, horses have two pigments, black and red (chestnut). If there were no modifying genes, they would be the only two horse colours in existence - black and chestnut (plus there would be no white markings either).
If you take a black horse and add a gene called agouti, you restrict the black pigment, thus exposing the red pigment. There are three versions of agouti, A, At and A+. They all restrict the black pigment differently, so you can see which version of agouti the horse has by looking at it.
When people use the word 'bay' to mean the colour of the horse's body (eg, he's a bay horse with black legs) they have misunderstood what is going on - all bay horses have black legs, part of being a bay horse is having black legs (ignoring any white markings). Bay means that the black pigment is restricted to the points (the legs, mane and tail).
Brown horses have their black pigment restricted slightly differently, which is why they have the brown muzzle (or red pigment exposed on the muzzle), under the eyes, on the armpits and flanks.
Wild bays have the most restricted black pigment, so they end up having a black mane and tail with hardly any black left on the legs (usually over the joints).
You can get variation in the exposed red pigment. Think how some bays are a blood/mahogany colour and others are a more orange.
Have a look at this horse (a link as it's a big photo). Again, ignore white markings. http://th06.deviantart.net/fs71/PRE...e_bay_arabian_by_valarian_warrior-d5b09ko.jpg You can see that he's got lovely black legs, so nt a wild bay, he's not got the paler area under his eyes etc... so he's a 'bay' but he's covered in dark dapples. This is because he also has 'sooty' which adds black pigment. The dark bays that I have seen, have sooty like that, but it is true that many horses called dark bay are really seal brown.
ETA - Blue blagdon is a black based horse with the type of sabino markings where the base colour and white are really mixed and roany, but some areas are whiter than others giving a marbled effect. It's only really called blagdon in the UK and when it's on a cobby type (and heavy horses too IIRC). if the same colour was on an arabian, for example, it would be called a black sabino.
and all the more confusing my boy goes lighter with dapple's in the summer I figured the sun bleached him, but he's definitely seal brown 90% of the year
Your giant conny (bless him - he's really going for it 
) has always looked bay roan in the photos that you have shown of him. He could still grey out, but he would be an unusually slow greyer if he suddenly developed 'grey goggles' etc... now. As I mentioned above, grey and roan do get confused a lot.
Mine is a Grullo, he's passported as black, in the summer you can see his dorsal stripe running down his back. Obviously, I think he is beautiful!
Here's my boy at 6 months (summer coat):
and here he is at 2 (summer coat):
and at 4 (winter coat):
Mine is a Grullo, he's passported as black, in the summer you can see his dorsal stripe running down his back. Obviously, I think he is beautiful!
Here's my boy at 6 months (summer coat):
and here he is at 2 (summer coat):
and at 4 (winter coat):
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I have a grey Eriskay (that's her nose in the pic), a bay connie, a black Shetland and my beautiful little black dun girlie pictured
Summer coat
Thank you! He's from an ad on Dragon Driving, (wasn't cheap though!) after I tried to get more info about a nice colt being advertised by a breeder/dealer, but it seemed to be far too much effort for them to take a couple of photos and I'm not going to chase people to give them money, so I had another look through DD, saw this chap's ad again (he'd been on a while) with a slightly lower price and phoned up. He was exactly as described on the phone so I loaded him up and back he came.
What else causes socks, apart from sabino?
That's interesting. He could have been a bright bay when born then and the grey was mistaken for Roan (happens far more often than it should), but he also had sooty, which added black pigment for a while, but then he's greyed out. Greys change so much, it's fun seeing how their colour progresses.
A - your lovely Mammoth is a gorgeous brown and dark enough to be seal brown IMO.
As to Camel, who knows? He was very pale in his last spring coat, so might be a buckskin roan. At this rate I won't be able to see him for all the clouds anyhow...
Faracat I'm rubbish with foal coats!
Though I thought PRE's carried cream but not dun so smokey black? I'm confused on this one!
he certainly doesn't look typically 'grullo' like this one
