True Colors of Arabian Horses

The true colours of the Arabian horse are the same colours that can be recorded with the Arabian Horse Association: bay, chestnut, grey, black and roan. Arabian horses are bred with other horses and cream colours are produced, but they are not full Arabian horses so the colours are not recognized. There is ongoing debate about the strain originality of markings and colours, and DNA studies are answering many of the questions, but more research needs to be completed to get definitive answers.

Colour My Arabian Horse Beautiful!

For now, the true colours of the Arabian horse remain the original 5 colours. Ask any Arabian horse owner about the horse colours and he or she will quickly tell you they are all beautiful. The Arabian horse has a beautiful thick coat developed to provide protection from the intense desert heat.

Getting it Right

When registering your Arabian horse foal, it is necessary to identify the colour properly. This may sound simple, but foal coats are shed and the new coat may be a different colour than the birth coat colour. There are ways to predict the colour the horse will be as an adult. For example, the colour of the hair around the eyes or tail root is normally the permanent coat colour. The Arabian Horse Association also has genetic rules that you can follow to determine the final colour, but if you get it wrong, the registered colour can be corrected at a later date.

The true colours of the Arabian horse include the colour grey. The coat appears grey because the black skin of the Arabian makes the mixture of white, chestnut or dark hairs look grey. The hair is not actually grey, but the colours of the hair will determine the shade of grey. A flea-bitten Arabian is a grey horse with tufts of reddish brown hair growing in its coat.

The Arabian horses with the bay colour have reddish-brown coats with black points. The black points are on the mane, tail, ears, knees and/or legs. It is the black points that set the bay colour Arabian apart from any other colour Arabian horse.

A black Arabian horse is black all over except for some white markings which can appear anywhere.

The final true colour of the Arabian horse is the roan. A roan horse has a coat that is half white hairs and half one of the other true colours of chestnut, black or bay.

Though it can be difficult sometimes to determine the right colours of Arabian horses, it is important that the horses be registered correctly. So if you discover after registration that the wrong colour was listed, there are procedures for correcting the registration.

A Coat of Many Colours

The true colours of the Arabian horse number only five, but within those five are wide variation of shading. In addition, white markings appear on most Arabian horses giving each horse a unique appearance. The skin of a true Arabian horse is black, protecting it from the desert heat. But most coats were lighter to reflect the heat away. With the sun not being an issue in many countries, the black Arabian horse is being bred more frequently.

No matter which colour is your favorite, every Arabian horse is coloured beautiful!