White Horse Color

Don’t you love horse coats with the color of snow? White horse color is such a peaceful and pleasant shade. It originates from a white gene and sports a uniform appearance. A true white horse will stay the same way throughout its lifespan. The color never pales or darkens as seasons come and go. If you examine the animal’s coat further, you cannot see any other tints – no gray, no cream, not even silver! Perhaps the only colors you’ll find are in the horse’s eyes, which can be in soothing hues of hazel-brown or blue.

Fake Whites

• Gray

Many white horses that you see today are not actually white but gray horses with white hair coats. Comparing the coat colors will not help you much in differentiating the genuine from the impostor. However, if you look underneath the hair, you can easily notice the difference! True white horses have white skin (of course) while gray horses have black. Occasionally, the gray’s chestnut, bay or black base coat can lighten as the horse matures. Make sure you’re not checking out the skin beneath white markings because those areas are always pinkish.

• Cremello and Perlino

Without DNA testing, it’s probably a bit harder for you to tell a true white horse from a cremello and perlino. All may share the very light-colored horse coat and blue eyes. Again, what makes a horse a “true white” is the white gene and this is something that cremellos and perlinos don’t have. In fact, the gene responsible for creating the cremello’s and perlino’s creamy white shade is a dilution gene called the cream gene. Chestnut horses with a cream gene may produce palomino offsprings, while bay horses with a cream gene may produce buckskin offsprings.

• Sabino White Pintos

In some occasions, the white horse you believed you saw could very well be a “fully expressed” pinto horse. Full expression basically means that the horse’s entire coat is covered by just one gigantic white spot (instead of several small ones) – thus making the animal appear white from head to hooves. Experts suspect that a certain Sabino 1 or SB1 gene is responsible for this effect. There are some breeds with a predisposition to sabino patterns but without this mysterious SB1 gene. Two examples are the Clydesdale and Arabian horses. Interestingly, you can rarely find a true white horse from their ranks.

The White and the Famous

The movie industry has used many gray horses to pass off as white beauties in films. Can you recall the movies which featured a snow-colored equine character or two?

Discounting the grays who have white horse color for coats, there are at least four true white horses who made it to the halls of fame. Two played the Lone Ranger’s horse “Silver,” one portrayed Hopalong Cassidy’s “Topper,” and one won a race course. As you can guess from the name, Yukichan was of Japanese descent. She was the thoroughbred race horse well remembered for her victory in the Grade II Race “Kanto Oaks on Kawasaki.”

True White vs. True Albino

One question that many would ask horse lovers is this: Is white horse color the same as true albino? The answer is no. You see, true albinos are white throughout too but you’ll never guess what shade their eyes are: a scary pink!

True albinos are devoid of pigmentation. They also suffer from the lethal white syndrome and therefore die young. If you want, you can still call white horses with blue eyes “living albinos” but you can’t classify them as true albinos at all.



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