Common Horse Colors
Don’t know what color your horse is? This simple guide to common horse colors should help straighten you out.
If you are reading my book about the Pony Express, History of the West with Sam Payne: Pony Boy, you might have realized how many different colors of horses there are. Of course, the Pony Express had to use many horses to make the 2,000 mail run in 10 days. According to its founder, Alexander Majors in his book Seventy Years on the Frontier, the Pony Express used from 400-500 horses across its line. The horses used on the Pony Express were varied, and the type used generally depended on geography. Further east, most sources indicate that thoroughbreds were used. The further west the mail traveled, the more likely mail was to be carried on the back of a “California mustang.” As noted by Alexander Majors:
“The horses were mostly half-breed California mustangs, as alert and energetic as their riders, and their part in the service - sure-footed and fleet - was invaluable.”
In his book The Mustangs, author J. Frank Dobie notes mustangs came in a variety of colors. At one point he notes that in a single herd, one eyewitness noted seeing “sleek hairs of bay and sorrel, brown and grullo, roan, dun, and gray, with here and there black, white and paint.”
If you are reading Pony Boy, or are just interested in understanding common horse colors, this post should help you. Below is a list of colors, followed by a brief definition, and a picture noted by Dobie as being historically present in a mustang herd. Hopefully, it will help you better visualize the events of the story. It should be noted that horse colors are something of a topic of debate. However, the photos below should be good representations to model the base color described.
Common Horse Colors
Bay
Bays are reddish-brown in color and have black mane and tails.
Sorrel
Maybe one of the most common horse colors today is sorrel. Sorrels are a copper-red color in body, mane, and tail.
Brown
As you might guess, browns are generally a dark brown in both hair and body. Like many colors, brown come in a variety of shades.
Grullo
Grullo horses are a light shade, and sometimes referred to as “mouse colored.”
Roan
Roans can be red, blue, or bay, but are characterized by a mixture of colored and white hair. The horse pictured is a red roan.
Dun
Dun is believed to be the “ancestral” color of wild horses. They are characterized by a golden-tan color with black points. The horse pictured is a Przewalski horse, which is believed to be only “wild horse” in the world.
Gray
Gray horses have a gray coat. Grays can be born nearly black, and end up nearly white as they get older. The horse pictured is referred to as a “dapple gray” due to the spotted appearance.
Black
Black horses are black in color.
White
White horses are white. They should not be confused with aged-gray horses.
Paint
Paint horses have large patches of white mixed with other colors.
Hopefully, these few pictures will help you better understand some common horse colors. While horses can come in many more colors, these descriptions should better help you understand the events in Pony Boy.
