Talk:Chestnut (coat)

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[edit] Sorrel vs. Chestnut

AQHA, that big gorrilla, uses sorrel and chestnut as coat colors, and most of the breeds of the western US follow their lead. I won't oppose a merger on those grounds alone, but I have seen a number of works that do break the two colors apart, including my copy of Sponenburg (sp?). Ealdgyth - Talk 13:10, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

(I'm quite surprised there hasn't been a battle going on for years...) I don't think it matters whether some people break them apart. Some people (eg all modern Brits) always say chestnut, others (as I understand it) always say sorrel for the same thing, and others use both terms, either interchangably (Brits up to about 1900 I think), or for subdivisions as you say.

It's straightforward enough: a single article would just say "Sorrel or chestnut is a coat colour of horses.."; it would define the broad category, then cover the various usages of each word. With separate articles there is far too much overlap – even if some people do keep them separate, many others do not, so each article has to cover the whole thing.

Although I'd never use "sorrel" myself, I have no great preference as to which would be the article title – perhaps whichever is the older term would be fairest?

I've suggested at Talk: Sorrel (horse) that we keep all the discussion here for the moment. --Richard New Forest (talk) 13:57, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi, I think I was the one who either broke out the Sorrel article from Chestnut, or else I was the one who expanded it from a stub (haven't checked history, isn't super-relevant). While I personally agree that these are basically the same color, I am not certain a merge is necessary, and I think that if a merge is done, it has to be VERY clear about putting material in on "what is a 'sorrel'," as the term has significant regional use within certain subgroups of horse people, particularly the AQHA (the biggest horse registry in the world, by the way) which I think actually breaks out chestnut and sorrel as separate coat colors (even though it makes no genetic sense). Some QH people wouldn't know what a "chestnut" horse was if one bit them! In fact, as a westerner who now says "chestnut" a lot, I learned to say "sorrel" as a kid originally and now get some really weird looks from people, who "correct" me and tell me that the chestnut horse is really a "sorrel" <grin> Just my two bits. I am a fan of "chestnut," but the people who say "sorrel" REALLY, REALLY, REALLY care. We could do more with disambiguation links, perhaps?? Montanabw^(talk) 00:09, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh and Richard (and Ealdgyth), I put a proposal on CGoodwin's talk page about the question of whether there is wisdom to creating some sort of chart that explains the difference between US English and UK English when it comes to horse terms. What do you think? I am amazed at how many differences there can be... Montanabw^(talk) 00:09, 18 March 2008 (UTC)