The Cream Dilution

Now that we know about the basic horse colors, I'm going to talk about the cream dilution.

A bay horse with one copy of the cream gene will be buckskin:


Notice that a buckskin horse looks alot like a dun horse, however, the are not the same. A dun horse will have a dorsal stripe and leg barring, and a buckskin will not. Also, the genes that cause duns and buckskins are not the same.

A bay horse with two copies of the cream gene will be perlino:


Perlinos are often confused with Albinos, but they are not the same.

A chestnut horse with one copy of the cream gene will be palomino:



And a chestnut horse with two copies will be cremello:



Notice how cremello looks like a very light shade of palomino instead of just white. Also notice the difference in the palomino's eyes and the cremello's eyes.

A black horse with one copy of the cream gene is very hard to tell apart from a normal black horse except by DNA testing or if it produces a cream dilution foal. Single dilute black horses are often called "Faded Blacks", "Smoky Blacks" or "Summer Blacks".

A black horse with two copies of the cream gene is a smoky cream:



Don't go anywhere, because next I'm going to talk about roans!