ridecamp@endurance.net: Re: [endurance] color

Re: [endurance] color

Gwen Dluehosh (dluehosh@vt.edu)
Thu, 4 Apr 1996 12:50:04 -0500

Well, I have done some reading on this particular subject- the Crabbet
stud, old Arab things, and the Bedouins wanted color too. THe highest
sought after was black as it was exceedingly rare. Next were bay then
chestnut, and gray was the least wanted of all. I will go get my sheet on
it and print what I wrote down about it- took notes on it there. Also in
the Crabbet books it was stated somewhere that the highest percentage of
horses shown were chestnut (gee wonder why?) and in fact, a lot of grays
don't really show up until Skowronek appears- I dare someone to go count up
all the grays they can find and see how many of those horses have Skowronek
in the pedigree- likely to be a lot I bet. That includes the Egyptians,
Spanish, Polish, Russian and English. This won't account for all of them,
but it will probably account for a good bit of it! The only exceptions
might be some of the early imports, and might I add that some of the finest
US Cavalry Endurance horses were NOT GRAY save a few, they were Chestnut or
Bay. - El Sabok, BLunt blood, etc. LAdy Wentworth was exceedingly fond of
grays- but I take it the Blunts were not.
Feel free to correct if you find other evidence, this is my general
impression from reading about the older horses!
Gwen

>We also need to ask ourselves if grey was a sought after genetic color.
>Horses bred in the desert would do best if they blended in - a dark color
>could be spotted from a distance more easily perhaps. Or at some point
>was grey considered a "royal" color?
No

>I've observed that in excessive heat & humidity conditions most
>chestnut/bays seem to suffer more than the greys. Dark colors attract
>more bugs! True--those annoying flies that burrow in to the chest,
>ticks, gnats--all seem to dive for the darker horses in the field first.
>Chestnuts are especially prone to sunburn (they are redheads after all).

My grays tend to suffer the most with the flies- the bays I have are
generally in very good shape during the summer! I don't believe chestnuts
are any more prone to sunburn than any other horse. I have an old pony who
is chestnut, and he never seem to have a problem of any kind- I have lots
of blazes on my horses, and that's is the only place I have problems with-
they get their summer sunburn then they do fine- but I think it is more of
a photosensitivity problem with the new lush grass coming in than a skin
thing.
Gwen

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