Silver Shades

Sometimes a silver (bay or black) will appear a very dark chocolate color with a lighter mane and tail. How, then, could you tell it apart from a dark flaxen chestnut or a chocolate palomino? There is a thing called a red factor test. This test will tell you if your horse is EE, Ee, or ee, then you will know if it is a black-based or a chestnut-based horse. If the horse comes back ee, then you know it's a chocolate palomino or a dark flaxen chestnut. If it comes back EE or Ee, then you know it is a bay or black with silver, since silver is the only thing that will make a black or bay horse's mane flaxen.

CHESTNUT + SILVER

As silver only dilutes black pigment, a chestnut silver will look no different than any other chestnut horse. There is not specific name for this color, as it doesn't differ from normal chestnut. However, a horse known to carry silver could be called a 'chestnut silver' or 'silver chestnut'.

BAY + SILVER

This creates a 'red silver' or 'bay silver' or 'silver bay'. The red body is undiluted, but the black mane and tail of the bay are diluted to a cream or flaxen color. The legs are diluted to a chocolate or light brown color, too.

BLACK + SILVER

This creates the traditional 'silver dapple' in many cases; the body is a sepia, chocolate, or dry grass brown color, with lighter dapples and a flaxen mane and tail.

Sometimes black is diluted to a chocolate body with little or no dappling, but lighter hair and fetlocks. These are called "chocolate flax" in the Rocky Mountain Horse breed.

The shade of black silver will vary with individuals. Some will be the classic silver dapple color, but some may be much darker, in fact, I have seen some whose coat appears black, and the mane and tail are almost white-- a very striking combination!

Occasionally, silver on black will give a very silver-blue body color and silvery-blue mane. This is called a "blue silver".

BROWN + SILVER

This may produce dark silvers like described above under 'black'. Brown-based blue silvers are probably the hardest to describe; the body is a dark bluish-color with orange soft parts (the undiluted red points of a seal brown). The mane and tails are a greyish-blue color.