Horses exhibit a diverse array of coat colors and distinctive markings, and a specialized vocabulary has evolved to describe them. Often, one will refer to a horse in the field by its coat color first rather than by breed or by sex. In spite of the adage that "a good horse is never a bad color," flashy or unusual colors are sometimes very popular, as are horses with particularly attractive markings, such as white on all four legs. Horses of the same color may be distinguished from one another by their markings.
The genetics of horse coat colors has largely been mapped, although research continues to be conducted on the identification of specific genes and mutations that result in specific color traits. Essentially, all horse colors begin with a genetic base of "red" (chestnut) or "black," with the addition of alleles for suppression of color, dilution of color, spotting, graying, or other effects acting upon the base colors in various combinations and varying degrees of dominance or recessivity that create the dozens of possible shades of horses.[
Horses that are light in color are often misnamed as being "white" horses. A horse that looks pure white is, in most cases, actually a middle-aged or older gray. Grays have black skin underneath their white hair coat (with the exception of small amounts of pink skin under white markings). This is how a gray horse can be distinguished from a white horse. The only horses properly called white are those with pink skin under a white hair coat, a far more rare occurrence.There are no truly albino horses (white skin and pink eyes). True albinism is a lethal gene in horses.
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