Horse Color Genetics:
​The Special Color Genes IN DETAIL

​The Special Color Genes
​
Now we bring it all together. Read about specific Special Color Gene bellow to understand how they work. If you want a more detailed explanation, or more picture examples of that color in horses, click through to the Horse Color page.
The Chocolate Gene (also called Silver Dapple or Taffy)

In Short: When turned on, the Chocolate gene lightens or removes black pigment, leaving red pigment unchanged.

The Chocolate gene, so sought after in the Rocky Mountain Horse breed, is often known by the name Silver Dapple or Taffy in other breeds. This gene acts upon black pigment, leaving red pigment unchanged. In Black horse this creates a body color ranging from dark brown to gold, and a mane and tail which are all or partially white. In Bay horses, the body is left red and the mane and tail often contain less white than in other Chocolates. (This variation is called a Red Chocolate and can be easy to mistake for a chestnut or bay horse.) In Chestnut horses the horse's color is left largely unchanged. Thus, this is one of the rare cases in which it is not always obvious by looking at a horse if it carries an ON version of a Special Color Gene.

  • To get a Chocolate horse, one of the parents must be a Chocolate horse. 
  • Chocolate horses can have any of the three base colors - chestnut, bay or black but the type of Chocolate produced will vary depending upon which base color the horse has.
The Dun Gene

In Short: When turned on, the Dun gene lightens or removes red pigment, leaving black pigment mostly the same but often adding a dorsal stripe and/or zebra patterns on the legs.

The word Dun has historically been used differently by people in different ways, often referring not to a single color but to any pale Special Color with dark points. But, as genetics become better understood, it is increasingly becoming the norm to use the term Dun to refer only to a specific alteration caused by the Dun gene. We will use it this way here.

A dun horse can easily be mistaken for a buckskin horse and vice versa. Like buckskins, Duns have a light colored body (somewhere between tan and a blue gray) and black points (mane, tail and legs). Duns often have a dark, dorsal stripe down the center of their backs (hence, the term, Striped Back Dun). However, other color horses may also have this stripe. Most, if not all Duns also have some form of primitive markings on their face, legs or lower bodies (hence, the term, Zebra Striped Dun). Primitive markings consist of dark webbing, often showing up in a form lighter than, but similar to, the stripes of a zebra.

  • To get a Dun horse, one of the parents must be a dun horse. 
  • Dun horses can have any of the three base colors - chestnut, bay or black. If they receive one or two ON copies of the Dun gene, that color will be lightened into some form of dun.
BASE COLORS AND THE TYPES OF DUN
  • Chestnut base color creates - red dun
  • Bay base color creates - dun
  • Black base color creates - grullo
The Cream Gene - Palomino, Buckskin, Cremello, Perlino

In Short: When turned on, a single copy of the Cream gene lightens or removes red pigment, leaving black pigment unchanged. Two copies remove all pigment from the horse.

The Cream Gene is responsible for creating Palomino, Buckskin, Cremello and Perlino coloring in horses. Which of the four it creates depends upon the base color and how many ON copies of this Special Color Gene a horse receives.

The Cream Gene is unusual among Special Color Genes, in that the colors produced come out differently depending upon whether the horse receives one ON copy of the Cream Gene or two. In general, the Cream Gene works by diluting the red hairs of the horse. If a horse receives ONE and ONLY ONE copy of the Cream Gene, it dilutes red coloring, effecting the parts of a horse which are influenced by red the most strongly, and having little to no effect on the black parts of a horse (creating a Palomino or Buckskin horse). However, if a horse receives TWO ON copies of the Cream Gene, this dilution happens differently, creating an almost white or sudo-albino horse, as in the case of Cremello and Perlino.

  • Palomino - A Palomino is a chestnut horse with one copy of the Cream Gene turned ON. This gene lightens the red body into gold and the mane and tail into white. To get a Palomino, at least one of the parents much be one of the four Cream Gene colors.
  • Buckskin - A Buckskin is a bay horse with one copy of the Cream Gene turned ON. This gene turns the black hairs tan or gray with no effect on the black legs, mane and tail. To get a buckskin, at least one of the parents much be one of the four Cream Gene colors.
    Black Buckskin - A Black Buckskin is a black horse with one copy of the Cream Gene turned ON. A Black Buckskin is easy to mistake for a black or a dark brown horse because the color variation is barely noticeable. This is because the Cream Gene lightens red coloring but black horses have little or no red hairs. To get a black buckskin, ​at least one of the parents much be one of the four Cream Gene colors.
  • Cremello - A Cremello horse is a chestnut horse with two copies of the Cream Gene turned ON - one from both the mother and the father. This creates a white horse with pink skin underneath. Cremello, Perlino and Smokey Cream horses mostly look very similar to each other. To get a Cremello, both parents must be one of the four Cream Gene colors.
  • Perlino - A Perlino horse is a bay horse with two copies of the Cream Gene turned ON - one from both the mother and the father. This creates a white horse with pink skin underneath, often with a yellow or gold sheen. Cremello, Perlino and Smokey Cream horses mostly look very similar to each other. To get a Perlino, both parents must be one of the four Cream Gene colors.
  • Smokey Cream - A Smokey Cream horse is a black horse with two copies of the Cream Gene turned ON - one from both the mother and the father. This creates a white horse with pink skin underneath, often with a yellow or gold sheen. Cremello, Perlino and Smokey Cream horses mostly look very similar to each other. To get a Smokey Cream, both parents must be one of the four Cream Gene colors.
BASE COLORS AND THE TYPES OF CREAM GENES
​The Champagne Gene

In Short: The Champagne Gene dilutes black hairs to brown and red hairs to yellow.

It results in a pale rose color, easily mistaken for one of the Cream Gene colors.
  • To get a Champagne horse, one of the parents must be a Champagne horse. 
  • Champagne horses can have any of the three base colors - chestnut, bay or black. If they receive even just one ON copy of the Champagne gene, that color will be lightened into some form of Champagne.
The Paint Gene

​In Short: The Paint Gene doesn't so much change the horse's base colors as replace large sections of it with splotches of white. These splotches can be huge, covering most of the horse, or minimal, with only a small interruption to an otherwise solid body color. 
  • To get a Paint horse, one of the parents must be a Paint horse. 
  • Paint horses can have any of the three base colors - chestnut, bay or black as well as any other Special Color possible in horses. When one or more of the horse's the Paint Genes is turned ON, whatever body color the horse would have been without it, is simply covered with large, irregular patterns of white over body, legs, mane, tail and/or face. 
The Roan Gene

​In Short: The Roan Gene doesn't so much change the horse's base colors as replace a large number of its hairs with white hairs. These white hairs are sprinkled throughout the horse's body, legs, mane, tail and/or face, haphazardly, intermingling with the horse's normal colored hairs. 
  • To get a Roan horse, one of the parents must be a Roan horse. 
  • Roan horses can have any of the three base colors - chestnut, bay or black as well as any other Special Color possible in horses. When one or more of the horse's Roan Genes is turned ON, whatever body color the horse would have been without it is simply intermixed with a sprinkling of  white hairs over body, legs, mane, tail and/or face. 
The Gray Gene (most white horses)

In Short: The Gray gene works over time to lighten all a horse's hairs to white. 

A Gray horse is rarely born gray. Instead, they are born any one of the other colors and slowly change over the course of their lives. Some horses change so fast that by the time they are adults, they are fully white. Others exist as an (often striking) gray color most of their lives and never quite reach full white. 
The Appoloosa Gene

The Appoloosa gene 
To learn more about any of the colors, and to see picture examples of each color, click on that color above.

Want to know about a color we missed? Email us!