Horse markings
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- Note: This article is about markings on any type or color of horse and does not discuss horse coat colors generally. For information on horses who have coat colors that genetically produce distinctive markings, see equine coat color.
Markings on horses are usually distinctive white areas on an otherwise dark base coat color. Most horses have some markings, and they help to identify the horse as a unique individual. Markings are present at birth and do not change over the course of the horse's life. Most markings have pink skin underneath the white hairs, though a few faint markings may occasionally have white hair with no underlying pink skin. Markings may appear to change slightly when a horse grows or sheds its winter coat, however the difference is simply a factor of hair coat length, the underlying design does not change.
On a gray horse, markings visible at birth may become hidden as the horse turns white with age, but markings can still be determined by trimming the horse's hair closely, then wetting down the coat to see where there is pink skin and black skin under the hair.
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[edit] Types of Markings
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[edit] Non-white markings
- Bend-Or spots: Dark faint spotting, usually seen on horses with a Chestnut or Palomino coat color.
- Ermine marks: The occurrence of black marks on a white marking, most often seen on leg markings just above the hoof.
[edit] Other markings
Horses may have isolated body spots that are not large or numerous enough to qualify them as an Appaloosa, Pinto or Paint. Such markings are usually simply called "body spots," sometimes identified by location, i.e. "belly spot," "flank spot," etc. When this type of isolated spotting occurs, it is usually the action of the sabino gene.
Horses may develop white markings over areas where there was an injury to the animal, either to cover scar tissue from a cut or abrasion, or to reflect harm to the underlying skin or nerves. One common type of scarring that produces patches of white hairs are "saddle marks," which are round or oval marks on either side of the withers, produced by a pinching saddle that had been worn over a long period of time.
Birdcatcher spots are small white spots, usually between 1 mm and 1 inch (25.4 mm) in diameter. It is not yet known what controls their expression, although it is believed that they are not genetic. Birdcatcher spots occur in many breeds. These spots may occur late in a horse's life, or may occur and then disappear.
Ticking or Birdcatcher ticks are markings that involves white flecks of hair at the flank, and white hairs at the base of the tail, called a "skunk tail". These patterns are permanent and probably genetic. It is thought that this roaning effect might be linked to the rabicano gene. The name comes from a Thoroughbred horse named Birdcatcher, who had white hairs throughout his flank and tail.
A type of deliberate human-created scarring that results in white hair is freeze branding, a relatively painless method of permanently marking a horse for identification purposes. Some forms of hot branding may also scar lightly enough to leave white hairs rather than bare skin, but hot branding is a process that can be painful to the animal.
[edit] Other identifying features
Horses can be uniquely identified by more than just markings or brands. A few other physical characteristics sometimes used to distinguish a horse from another are:
- Whorls, colloquially known as "cowlicks": divergent or convergent patches of hair found anywhere on the body but mostly on the head, neck, chest, belly, or just in front of the stifles.
- "Glass" eye, "Moon" eye or "Night" eye: A blue eye. Horses with blue eyes are less common than horses with brown eyes, but can see equally well.
- Chestnuts: A callous-like area on the inside of the horse's leg that has a subtle pattern, but one unique to each horse. It has been proposed that chestnuts could be used as a type of "fingerprint" to identify a horse, but the idea has failed to become widespread in practice, probably in part because the chestnut continually grows and sheds, making precise measurement a challenge.
[edit] Coat Colors with distinctive patterns
Some horse coat colors are distinguished by unique patterns. However, even for horses with coat colors that are arranged in a manner unique to each individual horse, these patterns are not called "markings." Some coat colors partially distinguished by unique patterning include:
- Appaloosa or "Leopard": A breed and a horse coat color pattern of small leopard-type spotting.
- Bay: A horse coat color that features "black points" on a red base coat. All bay horses have a black mane, tail and legs (except where overlain by white markings), caused by the presence of the Agouti gene. Most have black hairs along the edges of their ears and on their muzzles, and occasionally will have a slight darkening of the hairs along their backbone.
- Brindle: An extremely rare horse coat color, it features faint vertical striping in a shade slightly diluted from the base coat color. (Not to be confused with the zebra, which is an entirely different species.)
- Dun: A horse coat color that features a slightly darker hair shade from the base coat located in a dorsal stripe along the horse's backbone, horizontal striping on the upper legs and sometimes transverse striping across the shoulders. These markings identify a horse as a dun as opposed to a buckskin or a bay.
- Pinto A horse coat color that is distinguished by one of several possible broad spotting patterns, as opposed to the smaller spots typical of the Appaloosa. See also American Paint Horse, Overo, Tobiano, and Sabino.
- Roan: A horse coat color that features white and dark hairs intermingled together, but the horse usually has head and legs of the base color with very little white. Roans sometimes have dark areas on their coats similar to Bend-Or spots.
