Picture a horse in your mind. What color is it? Maybe it’s a silky black like Black Beauty or the Black Stallion. Maybe it’s a fiery chestnut like Ginger or Flicka. Or a buckskin like Spirit from the movie Spirit: Untamed.

While there is no such thing as a bad color on a horse, people do tend to think more of blacks and chestnuts than some of the other rarer colors. Ever heard of an amber champagne? Perlino? Purple roan?

In this article I’m going to show you (with photos!) five color groups that you’ve probably never heard of.

Let’s dive right in.

Rare colors that are part of the same category:

Champagne

There’s an entire registry devoted to champagne horses. The dilution gene in champagnes turns black horses brown, chestnuts into gold, and lightens the eyes so they become amber or even green!

Tennessee Walking Horses, American Saddlebreds, Missouri Foxtrotters and American Quarter horses are the most common breed carriers of the champagne gene. The song “Tennessee Stud” features a cowboy singing about his champagne stallion.

The dilution gene affects both the eyes and the coat of the horses and “dilutes” their base color. The green eyes aren’t really green—they’re blue with a band of gold around the pupils so they look light green. Still, the eyes are very stunning.

1# True Champagne

Black + dilution = True Champagne

This color is actually called champagne. True champagnes are khaki colored with chocolate points. There is a strain of Tennessee Walkers famous for this color.

2# Gold Champagne

Chestnut + dilution = Gold Champagne

Some of these horses are closer to palominos in color, with white manes and tails. Others have dark red chestnut points. Usually, their coats have hollow hair shafts, so their coats look metallic.

3# Amber Champagne

Bay + dilution= Amber Champagne

Amber champagnes are a sort of mix between true champagnes and gold champagnes. They have a gold body with chocolate points.

4# Sable Champange

Seal brown + champange

A smoky-peanut butter horse color with dark brown points.

Cream

Cremello, Smoky Cream, and Perlino

These are all cream-colored horses, and they look very similar, but are genetically different. Cremellos are found in Quarter horses, Saddlebreds, Shetlands, American Cream Draft Horses, and Akhal-Tekes. Perlinos are found in Andalusians, Lusitanos, Akhal-Tekes and Quarter Horses. Smoky cream is found in American Cream Drafts, Falabellas, Akhal-Tekes, and Quarter Horses.

5# Cremello

Cremellos are off-white to cream and have blue eyes and pink skin, with a chestnut base color. They are often confused as albinos, which is not true. There is no such thing as an albino horse, although true white horses have pink skin and dark eyes and are extremely rare.

6# Perlino

Perlinos are more of a creamy gold color and have the same blue eyes and pink skin as cremellos. Some people lump them together, but the colors are different. They too can be confused as albinos, but their base color is bay.

7# Smoky Cream

Smoky Cream is the same as perlino and cremello, but with a black base.

Silver Dapple/Taffy

Most commonly sported on the Rocky Mountain Horse. Icelandic and Shetland pony, silver dapples are also called taffies, chocolate flax, or silvers. The color is very rare in North America.

8# Silver Dapple Bay

Basically a chestnut horse that has light colored legs and flaxen mane and tail that may have streaks of chestnut in it.

9# Silver Dapple Black:

Chocolate colored horse with flaxen mane and tail. Rocky Mountains are famous for this color.

Separate Rare Colors

10# Purple Roan

A liver chestnut with roaning. Some horses are more purple than others.

11# Silver Dun

Lightest gold shade imaginable, almost silver in color.

12# Claybank dun

Clayish color, with a yellowish shade, cream, red, or white mane and tail. Very rare.

13# Silver Grulla

This is the same color as the MC horse, Lightning, in Rebel Girl! Silver grullas are slate colored in body with a silver mane and tail, sometimes with a dark head and body.

14# Mushroom

Found mostly in Shetland ponies and Icelandic horses, mushroom is a tan color with a silver mane and tail.

15# Pangare

A modifier that adds white hairs to a horse’s lower body. It’s most commonly seen in Norweigian Fjords and Belgians.

16# Pearl

A gene that lightens horses to an apricot color, sometimes with blue eyes; mostly found in Quarter Horses and Spanish-descent mustangs.

17# Sooty

A genetic variant that adds dark hairs to a horse’s body. Most commonly found in Haflingers, Brumbies, Shires, Quarter Horses, and Akhal-Tekes.

18# Brindle

A rare genetic mutation more commonly found in bulldogs, brindle is so far only found in the Quarter Horse and its genetic basis is still being studied.

19# Chimera

A more extreme mutation of brindle involving two horse embryos fusing together during pregnancy. These horses are stunning and extremely rare.

20# True White

There are over twenty genetic mutations that turn a horse white, but white horses are still the rarest of all. Their skin is pink and their eyes are dark brown.

So that’s it! We’ve finally come to the end of our article. I hope this helped you discover a new favorite horse color.

Here are some links if you want more information:

The Champagne Horse Registry

Practical Horseman Color Genetics Guide

Akhal-Teke Association of America