Cream Horse Color

What do buckskins, cremellos, palominos and perlinos share in common? A coat of cream horse color, of course!

This velvety pale yellowish or off-white hue is due to a cream gene, which is surprisingly responsible for producing a smoky black coat too, but not for the white markings common to many horses. Prepare your mind, because in the following section, you’ll get a light dose of genetics lessons which teach you how this cream gene works!

Dilution Effect

As you may well guess, the cream gene will lighten a horse’s eye color, coat and skin. The gene works in pairs and each “unit” in a pair is what you call an allele.

When there is only one allele present, a red horse coat may become gold or yellow. You can spot this color dilution first hand in the mane and the tail.
When both alleles are present, a red horse coat may turn to cream while a black horse coat may have some reddish hues. The impact of the gene on black is not that significant.
When both alleles are present, there’s a high probability that the horse will be fair-skinned and blue-eyed. Don’t mistake cream for white though, because these two colors are not one and the same!

Cream Gene Mimics

There are so many dilution genes, and cream is only one of them. Its effects are somewhat mimicked by other dilution genes such as silver, champagne and pearl. There are even some horses that have a combination of dilution genes in their system, resulting to a “pseudo double diluted” horse coat color. A sure-fire way for you to tell that a cream gene is indeed responsible for your horse’s fair skin and light eye color is a DNA test.

Breakthroughs in Registries

Thank whoever discovered the cream gene, because that person has ended a form of discrimination among horses! You see, breed registries before would disqualify animals with cream horse color and blue eyes on the grounds of albinism. Today, these breath-taking cremellos are no longer banned from breed registries.

That’s something any cremello horse owner would love to smile about, don’t you agree?

Cremello paint horses are also possible. These beautiful animals are as rare as they are beautiful.

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