Believe it or not, there are a pretty wide scope of dapple types, from grey to silver to mealy to reverse there is quite a variety. Many colors can show dappling, especially during the summer or after a body clip. Only certain types are truly rare and some of them are seasonal, but there are many different types of lovely dapples.
Grey
When people say dapple, probably a grey animal is what comes to mind. Not all greys dapple in such a lovely way, but the ones that do don’t disappoint, with flashy displays of lovely white spots. Grey dappling can affect all base colors.
Dapple grey
Dapple grey
Silver
Perhaps the second thing people think of when the term dapple is used, silver dapple is the name of a color and the result of a silver dilution on a black based horse. While their name implies they are always dappled, not all black silvers display dapples.
Silver dapple
Silver dapple
Cream
The cream dilution doesn’t create dapples per se, but animals with a single cream gene commonly display beautiful seasonal dappling. This can only be found on animals with a bay, chestnut and some light browns.
Buckskin
Palomino
Sooty
The sooty modifier can cause dappling year round, but generally more obvious certain times of the year. This type of dappling is generally found on chestnuts (including palomino), bay and brown animals.
Sooty Palomino
Sooty bay
Seal
Seal seems to have its own version of black and tan dappling that shows up occasionally. Truly earning the brown moniker, with varying shades of brown dappling. This may be due to a combination with a sooty gene.
Sooty Seal
Seal
Flaxen
The flaxen modifier affects the mane and tail of a chestnut base, diluting it to flaxen white. It can also have a subtle effect on the lower legs and maybe cause some dappling. These are likely to be seasonal. The Haflinger pictured may have a sooty element as well.
Flaxen
Flaxen
Mealy
Cute mealy affects the soft spots of an animal, the eyes, nose, elbows, belly and flank are lightened. This can also cause dappling where white bleeds into the coat color. This is also more obvious seasonally.
Mealy
Mealy
Dun
While dun isn’t generally known for dappling, during warm months grullos can show subtle but lovely dappling.
Grullo or Dun
Grullo or Dun
Roan
While roan is a white pattern not necessarily known for it’s dappling, they can show dapples and even reverse dappling in their coat. Most of the reverse dappling examples we’ve found have a roan pattern attached to them.
Roan
Roan
Reverse
Reverse dappling is perhaps the rarest of the bunch. Instead of white surrounded by the base color, reverse dapples are dark spots surrounded by white. This coloring might also be found with frost appaloosa patterns from time to time.
Reverse
Reverse