What is a coloured horse?
"Coloured" is the British word for a horse marked in white and one other colour, and it has a registry definition behind it.
“Coloured” is the British word for a horse marked in white and one other colour, and unlike most colour words it has a registry definition behind it. CHAPS (UK), the Coloured Horse and Pony Society, is a DEFRA-approved studbook and passport issuing organisation founded in 1983 with more than 20,000 horses and ponies registered.
Their handbook sets the test: a coloured horse or pony is one “whose coat colour is either white and black or white and… any other colour, bay, roan, chestnut; with a patch of naturally occurring white above the level of the stifle or e.g. elbow, excluding any face markings”. Manes and tails may be white or part-white. Appaloosas, and animals whose only white is on the belly, don’t qualify.
That placement rule is the part people miss. Four white socks and a blaze don’t make a horse coloured; the white has to be up on the body. The society also notes horses that are “genetically coloured” without showing enough white, which DNA testing can confirm.
Within that, the two traditional words are piebald and skewbald, and one particular pattern is called a blagdon. If you want the exact pattern kept, a portrait is made from your own photograph.
Written by Craig Fearn, Stable & Hoof.
Also in choosing your horse
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Type a horse's name and watch the print set itself. Free, no photo needed, about ten seconds.
From the tack room
Questions, answered
Does a horse with white socks count as coloured?
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No. CHAPS (UK) requires "a patch of naturally occurring white above the level of the stifle or e.g. elbow, excluding any face markings". Leg and face white alone does not qualify.
Is a coloured horse a breed?
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No, it is a colour. CHAPS (UK) registers horses and ponies of all types, which is why coloured horses range from gypsy cobs to sport horses.
From the journal