What IS a tri-color anyway?

[Silver1]

I saw the thread in the cafe area bout tri-colors, and it made me wonder what one looked like, as I was told Mear had a tri-colored foal before I got her.

So far the only image I have found is this fellow here:

http://www.horses-sales.com/horse/77053

And if he's a tri-color, my horse is a quad-color :P

[Dina]

I always thought that a tri-coloured horse was a horse that had black,white and brown markings like this one,
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v245/DehydratedRat/wwgat.jpg
I might be wrong though.

[Silver1]

But that would be a Bay tobiano, wouldn't it? Bay base with white over-lay?

[chev]

And a piebald is black tobiano, and skewbald grey tobiano or palomino tobiano or chestnut tobiano... :D

The problem is that the term tricoloured was coined to describe a bay tobiano before genetics were understood. Piebald was used to describe a black and white horse, tricoloured a bay and white horse, and skewbald generally chestnut and white but also any other colour and white (sometimes including bay and white - or 'tricoloured' horses!)

Terms for tobiano horses are many and varied (and actually end up causing arguments in some places! Bit like the dun/buckskin arguments...). Round here a bay and white is known as red and white, the term tricoloured is never heard, and people look at you as if you've taken leave of your senses if you call anything a bay tobiano.

Purists and anoraks will get really hot under the collar about the use of terms like tricolour (bit like people who get really snotty about insisting that white greys are known as greys, because there is no such thing as a white horse.... ;) ) because of the confusion caused. Tis not worth the stress, if you ask me!

Tricolour is defined as a horse that has three different colours in patches.... to be honest the only horse where that would truly occur is a roan tobiano, where you'd get dilute patches, white patches and undiluted patches on the animal since horses generally don't have more than one base colour on the body. But most people use it to define a horse that has patches of base colour and white, and black points; so bay tobiano, buckskin tobiano and so on.

I know someone who has two buckskin tobiano fillies she calls tricoloured. Failing that she calls them dun and white. Genetically both terms are innaccurate; visually anyoine fetching them in for her would know which fillies she meant. Those same people would probably have no idea what horses she was on about if she asked them to fetch in the buckskin tobianos.... :D There's a time and a place for technicalities!

[GarnetFox]

So, an otherwise piebald friend of mine with a large, neat roan patch on his side (not grey) would be termed tri-colour?

[Shiny McShine]

The term tri-coloured usually refers to bay and white, brown and white, or any colour where the horse appears to have white and two other colours. Usually a horse like the one you're describing would still be termed a piebald.

Genetically however, the horse could be a Sabino, as this colouring often involves roan colouration, or he could be a black roan with the white markings over the top. One would have to see a picture of him to be sure, but going by the old naming principles I don't think you would call him tri-coloured.

[Silver1]

Thank you, I just thought there might be some deeper meaning as the owner stressed that her foal was a tri-color, when Mear is just about the same.

She's a bay tobiano, with her brown patches roaning around the edges (especially in summer) and a queer darker brown patch sitting on top of a brown patch, and ermine marks on all her toes.

[chev]

She'd be known as tricolour then Silver1.

Purists and genetics fans will still tell you there's no such thing as a tricolour.

And non-geneticists will still wonder what on earth you're on when you tell them your horse is bay tobiano...

[Vicki&Milo]

I'm pretty confused now, I was always told piebald was black and white, any other colour and white was a skewbald (be it brown, bay or chestnut) and a tri-coloured actually has patches of two colours and white, rather than borwn patches but with black mane. There's one like that where I used to ride, but I don't have any photos.

[chev]

That's the problem with the term; it's not really a well-defined term at all. There are, really, very few horses who really are tricoloured if you use the two colours and white in patches on the body definition. Tobiano causes white patterns on a solid base. There are very few horses who have two different solid colours on their body (roans and certain Appy patterns aside). There is the brown-and-black patched Icelandic picture but that's the only one I've ever seen and I have been told that is a fake anyway.

The genetics governing horse colour don't really lend themselves too well to that definition. If you're talking black and brown patches on the body - there is no gene that will do that (leaving anomalies like grease spots aside for now). There have been horses that show brindle patterns but not patches of colour (again, the dubious picture of the Icelandic is the only example I know of). The closest really that you'd get is something like a bay with sooty, where with tobiano adding white patterns you could end up with patches of black at the top of the body and red further down.

So... most people describing a tricolour will use it to describe a bay and white. Which could also be skewbald, bay tobiano, bay overo, bay sabino or red and white according to what pattern the horse actually displays, who you talk to and where you live. There is no right or wrong answer when you're talking about terms like tricolour and skewbald - but they are not accurate or clear in that respect, which is why geneticists and lots of people with an interest in colour genetics won't use them.