The Colorful World of Pintos

Spotted horses have always held a special place in our heart, their showy displays of color make them great photography subjects.

Pintos Come in A Rainbow of Colors

Because pintos can be any breed, their colors and genetics vary widely. With so many patterns and so many colors to choose from we’ll never be able to pick a favorite. In our quest to find the prettiest pinto out there, we ran across such a lovely rainbow of colors and patterns that we decided to put them together into a post and share them.

Base Colors

The horse basic colors of horses are black, chestnut, bay and brown, all other colors and white patterns stem from these basic colors.

Black
Also called piebald, pinto pattern on a black base.

Chestnut
Also called skewbald, pinto pattern on a chestnut base.

Bay
Also called tricolor, pinto pattern on a bay base.

Brown
Also called tricolor, pinto pattern on a brown base.

Modifiers

There are several genes that modify the basic black and chestnut bases.

Flaxen
Pinto pattern and flaxen modifier on a chestnut base.

Mealy
Pinto pattern and Pangare modifier on any base (except black).

Sooty
Pinto pattern and a sooty modifier visible on any base (except black).

Dilutions and Other White Patterns

Dilution genes not only affect the base colors, but they can affect modified colors to, furthering the spectrum of colors. The white patterns and also mix and match.

Cream Palomino
Pinto pattern and a single creme gene on a chestnut base.

Cream Buckskin
Pinto pattern and a single creme gene on a bay base.

Double Cream
Pinto pattern and a double creme gene on any base color.

Silver Dapple
Pinto pattern and a silver gene on a black base.

Grullo
Pinto pattern and a dun gene on a black base.

Pintaloosa
Pinto pattern and a appaloosa pattern on any base color.

Colorful Fun

Hope you enjoyed, horse coloration is quickly becoming one of our favorite topics of research. We’re working on an appaloosa version too, paying homage to the spotted horses of the world.

2 Comments on “The Colorful World of Pintos”

Deb (D) February 19, 2009 at 1:13 pm

Dear Paige,
Re the variety of Pinto colorings — who knew?!! Incredible. Especially loved the little “Pintaloosa”. And what in the world is going on in the last photo — looks like one horse biting another but really hard to tell. I’d unsubscribed to The Equinest for a little while, but just re-subscribed — the only regular e-mails I would get that I actually really enjoyed, and that always teach me something new. So I’m back on the list. Glad you’re still there, and thanks, for still being there and being so full of information and variety and interesting stuff. (I live in a small apartment in a suburb of Detroit, have never owned a horse, but used to dream of doing so, and have never stopped loving them–one of the most beautiful creatures on the earth.)

Reply ↓

Paige February 19, 2009 at 5:08 pm

Hi Deb,

Thanks for your note, glad to have you back. 🙂