SafekipediaGray horse
Adapted from Wikipedia · Adventurer experience
A gray horse (or grey horse) has a special coat that changes as it gets older. Unlike other colors that stay the same, a gray horse starts with colored hair and slowly gets more white hairs. These white hairs mix with the original color. Some gray horses turn white quickly, while others change very slowly. Most gray horses become completely white, but they still have dark skin and eyes.
Gray horses can be born with any base color, depending on their genes. As they age, their coats might look dappled or roan-like. They can even develop small dark spots called “fleabitten gray.” Many horse breeds have gray horses, but this color is especially common in breeds descended from the Arabian, such as the Thoroughbred, American Quarter Horse, and Welsh pony. Breeds like the Percheron, Andalusian, and Lipizzaner also often have gray horses.
It’s important to know that a gray horse that looks completely white still has black skin and dark eyes. This helps tell it apart from a true white horse, which usually has pink skin and sometimes blue eyes. The gray color comes from a special gene, and a horse only needs one copy of this gene to have a gray coat. This makes gray a very common coat color in many horse breeds.
Prevalence
Gray coats are common in many horse breeds. About one in ten horses becomes gray as they grow older. Most Lipizzaners and many Andalusian horses are gray. Breeds like the Percheron and Boulonnais from France are often gray too. You can also find gray coats in Welsh Ponies, Thoroughbreds, and American Quarter Horses. All these breeds share roots with the Arabian horse.
Gray coats can also affect horses with spotted patterns like pintos and leopard complex horses, such as Appaloosas. This can make the spots appear lighter or less clear.
Changes in the color of gray horses
A gray foal can be born any color, but bay, chestnut, or black colors are most common. As the horse gets older, white hairs replace its original coat color. These white hairs usually appear first around the muzzle, eyes, and flanks, often by the age of one year. Over time, the white hairs spread until the horse's coat may become completely white.
Different horse breeds and individual horses gray at different speeds, so it’s hard to guess a horse’s age just by its color. A very young horse will never have a white coat, unless it is a true white horse. By their teens, most gray horses are fully gray.
Because a gray horse’s color changes over time, the color listed on breed registry papers might need to be updated.
Other factors, such as white markings, certain white spotting patterns, or dilution genes, can also affect the skin and eye color of a horse.
| Name | Image | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Foals | Horses in their first year begin to show a few white hairs as their foal coat sheds. Some foals show gray hairs around their eye, muzzle and other "soft" areas at birth, others do not show white hairs until they are almost yearlings. | |
| Young gray horses | An intermediate stage typically seen in young horses in the early stages of turning gray is when white hairs are mixed with the dark birth color. In horses born black or dark bay, the horse shows mostly black and white hairs intermingled on the body. This is sometimes called "salt and pepper", "iron gray", or "steel gray." This is the most common intermediate form of gray, which can give a silvery look to the coat. A reddish tinge, called a "rose gray", describes this intermediate stage for a horse born a chestnut or bright bay. Young horses just starting to gray out are sometimes confused with roans, but a gray continues to lighten with age, while a roan does not. Roaning also causes fewer white hairs on the legs and head, giving the horse the appearance of dark points, which is usually not true of gray. | |
| Dapple gray | Light and dark areas form a dappled pattern of dark rings with lighter hairs on the inside of the ring, scattered over the entire body of the animal. Not all grays dapple, and it is an intermediate stage, usually seen in young adult horses, often considered highly attractive. The horse will continue to become lighter. Dappled grays should not be confused with the slight dappling "bloom" seen on horses of other colors that are in excellent condition, as "bloom" dapples disappear should the horse lose condition. | |
| Late stage graying | As grays become lighter with age, a few areas, especially around the flanks and legs, retain some color | |
| Complete depigmentation | Nearly all hairs are white. A horse at this stage may be done changing color, or may begin to develop fleabitten pigment. Gray horses with a completely white coat can be distinguished from a white horse by their underlying black skin, particularly around the eyes, muzzle, and genital area. | |
| Fleabitten gray | Flea-bitten gray is a color consisting of a white hair coat with small pigmented speckles or "freckles". The flea-bitten pattern is seen primarily in heterozygous Grays. Most horses who become flea-bitten grays still go through a brief period when they are pure white. The amount of speckling varies between individuals and density of speckling may increase as the horse ages. Some horses may appear almost pure white, with only a few speckles observed on close examination. Others may have so many speckles that they are occasionally mistaken for a roan or even a type of sabino. | |
| Blood marks | One unique form of gray, genetically related to flea-bitten gray, are "blood marks" or a "bloody shouldered" horse. This is an animal that is so heavily pigmented on certain parts of the body, usually the shoulder area, that it appears as an irregular, almost solid pattern—as if blood had been spilled on the horse, hence the name. Blood marks can change size and shape as the horse ages. Arabian horse breeders claim the Bedouin people considered the "bloody shoulder" to be a prized trait in a war mare and much desired. |
The genetics of gray
See also: Equine coat color genetics
A gray horse has a special gene that makes its hair turn lighter over time. If a horse has one copy of this gene, it will become gray. All gray horses need to have at least one gray parent. Scientists believe this graying happened a long time ago in one horse.
This gray gene does not change the horse’s skin or eye color, so gray horses usually have dark skin and eyes. Some gray horses might develop a skin growth as they get older, but many of these grow very slowly.
Horse coat colors sometimes confused with gray
White horses
Main articles: White (horse) and Dominant white
Many people think a gray horse is "white", but most white horses have pink skin and sometimes blue eyes. A gray horse usually has dark skin and dark eyes, even if its hair looks white.
Roan
Some gray horses that are changing color might look like a roan or a rabicano. But roans and rabicanos look different. Roans have white patches mixed with dark hair, and the head and legs stay darker. Rabicanos also have white patches mostly on the body with a dark head. With gray horses, the head often lightens first, especially around the eyes and muzzle. Roans do not change color with age, but gray horses get lighter as they grow older.
The varnish roan is a special color seen in Appaloosa horses. It can change a little with age, but unlike gray horses, it does not become fully white.
Diluted colors
Some other horse colors can look like gray. For example, a "blue dun" or grullo might seem solid gray, but it is caused by a different gene and does not get lighter with age. Light cream-colored horses, like cremello or perlino, are also not gray unless they inherit the gray gene from a parent. The pearl gene and the champagne gene can also make a horse’s coat look lighter, which might be mistaken for gray.
Even though it is called "silver dapple", this gene does not make a horse gray. It changes black hair to a dark brown and the mane to a pale color, but the horse stays this color forever unless it also has the gray gene.
Mythology
Gray horses, like white horses, appear in many old stories and myths. In these tales, gray horses sometimes have special features, such as seven heads or eight feet. Some stories say that gray horses could predict the future or warn of danger.
Main article: White horse (mythology)
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