Grullo
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Grullo (also black dun, blue dun or lobo dun) is a color of horses, characterized by smoky or mouse-colored hairs on the body, often with shoulder and dorsal stripes and black barring on the lower legs. In this coloration each individual hair is mouse colored, unlike a roan which is composed of a mixture of dark and light hairs.
The word grullo originates from the Spanish word "grulla", which refers to a slate-gray crane. Because of the Spanish origin of the name, some people will refer to a mare as a grulla and a stallion as a grullo, pronounced "grew-ya" and "grew-yo" respectively.
A grullo horse is a dun with a black base, but is much rarer than red and bay duns. Only 0.7% of quarter horses registered each year with the AQHA are grullo. There are several variations of grullo, referred to as black dun, blue dun, slate grullo, silver grullo, silver dun, or lobo dun.
The most obvious way to tell a grullo is its primitive markings, which are some or all of the following: dark face; cobwebbing around the eyes and forehead; dark mottling on the body; leg barring (sometimes called tiger striping); dark ear tips and edging; dark ear barring; dark shadowing of the neck; dark dorsal and transverse striping; mane and tail guard hairs.
