Perlino

A bay horse with one cream gene is a buckskin; with two, it is a perlino.

This horse could also be called a "double dilute bay" or "homozygous cream" or "homozygous buckskin", but perlino is shorter and the accepted term.

The description of a perlino is pink skin, blue eyes, cream coat, and coffee- or pinkish- colored points. Like the cremello, the pink skin and light coat have some pigment; they aren't like the unpigmented patches on pintos.

Because this horse has a bay base, the points are darker than the body; the Cream gene dilutes red pigment more than it does black. Sometimes the mane, tail, and legs are a tanish-coffee color, and sometimes they can get very pink-- it varies from horse to horse.

















































© Annamaria Tadlock