Pangaré or mealy is thought to be part of an ancestral color ‘package’ that includes wildtype bay and the dun factor. The combination creates a variety of dilution, striping and dappling that could be forms of natural camouflage.
Updated Colors
We’ve been giving our colors section a major overhaul, to make the information more accurate and provide better images. Equine color genetics are incredibly complex and some of it still remains a mystery, even for geneticists. We think that is part of the fun.
Lovely Pangaré
The genetic inheritance of pangaré or mealy is unclear and it does not seem to have an affect on black coats. Mealy affects the lower and soft spots of a horse, causing light hairs to grow in those areas. The light areas range from a few shades lighter than the body to a creamy white and vary considerably in intensity from animal to animal and breed to breed.
The Range
As there is such variation in pangaré expression, below are some examples of minimum through to maximum on different base colors.
Minimum Expression
Medium Expression
Maximum Expression
Affecting the Basics
As mealy doesn’t affect true black animals, we are left with chestnut, bay and brown bases that can display pangaré characteristics.
Chestnut Base
Bay Base
Seal BaseMealy Breeds
While many breeds carry the pangaré gene, there are some which are almost exclusively mealy, often found paired with dun or flaxen. Interestingly many of them are old northern breeds and of course the zebra-like Przewalski’s horse.
Belgian Draft
English Exmoor Pony
Austrian Haflinger 
Norwegian Fjord
Przewalski’s HorseColorful World
The world of horse colors is truly a spectacular one and we will continue to share updated color (and breed) pages, with all of their spectacular images. We’ve been working on some quick color cheat sheets for all of the horse color lovers out there. Click the image below for a larger version.
