I have never paid much attention to horses and their coloring in my life, so why should I have any problem when I paint them? I mean, all those afternoons of watching westerns should have taught me what colors horses are. But then, how many brown horses can one paint in a lifetime....or black, or tan, or.....? I began to notice an error in my logic when my best friend and I were watching our girlfriends ride horses one day. There appeared to be quite a variety and combination of colors and patterns. Additionally, some of the color combinations seen on painted miniature horses do not seem to exist in real life! After talking to a horse breeder, and a trip to the library, I have compiled a listing of how horses are supposed to look. I hope that others will find my research useful and as informative as it has been for me. I will list the categories in as brief a format as I can under headings that should allow the reader to quickly scan for the information that he is looking for. COLOR There are four basic skin (coat) colors; black, brown, bay, and chestnut. These can be genetically modified to produce the following; white, grey, cream, dun, roan, and pied. BLACK: the body, head, limbs, mane and tail are all black. BROWN: the body color is brown and the mane, tail, and lower parts of the legs are black. BAY: the body color may vary from a yellowish color to red to light brown, with the mane, tail and lower parts of the legs being black. CHESTNUT: the body color varies from a light golden red to a dark chocolate. The legs, mane and tail may be a shade lighter or darker than the body color, but they are never black. WHITE: (Here's a surprise) the foals are born white and, in some cases, the eyes are blue. Most white horses are greys that have become whiter with age. GREY: the body color of the foal at birth will show one of the basic colors. Grey horses become white with age because white hairs develop in the horse in the same way they do in an aging human. The white hairs usually appear on the face first. ROAN: (Here's another surprise) at birth the foal is born with a roan color that will stay throughout life. The different combinations of white hairs with the four basic colors will give the different types of roans; black (blue) roan, brown roan, bay (red) roan, and chestnut (strawberry) roan. DUN: the body color will range from a light yellowish to a dark brown. The mane and the tail are dark. Duns have a "stripe" down their backs and may have transverse stripes on their knees and hocks. PIED: the body color has large white areas alternating with one of the four basic colors. As with the roans, such horses will be described by their different combinations; pied—black, pied—chestnut, pied—brown, and pied—bay. CREAM: the body coat, mane and tail are cream. The Palomino is a variation, with a body color ranging from light to dark "gold" with a light mane or tail. LEG MARKINGS CORONET: a white strip of hair just above the hoof. PASTERN: white hair in the area extending from the top of the hoof (coronet) to just below the fetlock joint. FETLOCK: white hair in the region from the top of the hoof (coronet) to the top of the fetlock. This white area is also known as a "sock". CANNON: white hair extending from the top of the hoof up to immediately below the knee in the foreleg, or the hock in the hindleg. This area is also known as the "stocking". KNEE or HOCK: white hair from the top of the hoof up to and including the knee or hock. Additionally, let's not forget that there are actually many other natural distinguishing marks, which look like whorls, flecks, and can be black spots and stripes. The horse may have also accumulated unnatural markings which, apart from the usual branding, may be scars, blemishes or wounds. The most common feature on a horse's head and legs are those formed by white hair forming a particular and irregular, but recognizable, shape. FACE MARKINGS "STAR": a solid, white marking on the forehead of varying size and shape. "STRIPE": a narrow band of white running down the face, approximately from the eyes to the nostrils. It may be joined to a star or be seperate from it. "SNIP": a white mark between or in the area of the nostrils. "LIP": a white mark on the upper and/or lower lip(s). "BLAZE": a solid white mark from the area of the star to the snip, covering the full width of the nasal bones. "BALD or WHITE FACE": a much broader extension of the blaze, usually involving both of the eyes. Well, that's how to decide which brand of horse you want to paint in a nutshell. I have tried to be as brief, but informative, as I could be in my definitions. Good luck and good painting on your next round of ACW horses, whether they be grazing for the Union or the Confederacy! [Editor's Note]: I wish to thank Tom for his article, quite unusual for our magazine. For anybody truly dedicated to making their figures as realistic as possible, the material is sure to be of great assistance. I had never quite thought about whether my horses were true to life before, but with Tom's information, I m sure future equestrian ventures will be more accurate. With any luck, we'll be able to include information about some of the more famous horses in the Civil War. The editors encourage our members to write similarly valuable articles that tend to get overlooked because of the emphasis on scenarios, flags, and unit histories. If you live near a museum that has Civil War uniforms or flags, go with a camera (color film) or pen and paper and send us info on the colors and descriptions of the regimental variations — colors and styles! Back to The Zouave Vol V No. 3 Table of Contents Back to The Zouave List of Issues Back to Master Magazine List © Copyright 1991 The American Civil War Society This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com