Late greying horse? · Get Good With Horses Courses

Late greying horse?

Hi everyone!

I’d love to hear your opinions and experiences on my horse’s coat colour, because I’m genuinely unsure and would really appreciate an outside perspective.

My horse was born light chestnut, then darkened significantly as he grew (dark chestnut/almost liver chestnut at 4yo), and over the last year he has started to lighten again. What caught my attention is that during this winter he has developed white hairs in his mane, and these hairs are growing white from the root, not just sun-bleached tips. The rest of the mane and tail are still mostly reddish, as is the body coat. I noticed his skin is dark.

Genetically:

His sire is grey, but known to be heterozygous (Gg)
His dam is chestnut

So statistically he had a 50% chance of being grey and a 50% chance of staying chestnut, which is part of why I’m so unsure.

At 5 years old, he still largely looks chestnut, just lighter than before, which makes me wonder:

Could this still be a normal chestnut “colour evolution” with some random white hairs?
Or does this pattern (lightening over time + white hairs appearing from the root, especially in the mane during winter) sound like early or late-onset greying to you?

I’m honestly a bit conflicted because visually he doesn’t look like a typical young grey yet... I’m finding it a bit hard to wrap my head around the idea that he might actually be changing color. The picture where he appears darker is exactly from a year ago (4yo) and the second and third one arefrom yesterday.

Thanks! 🥰

8 comments