Standard bay horses have a medium reddish brown shade with an even color all over and no mix of lighter or darker hairs. Some variations of bay horses are blood bay (a very dark blood-red color), mahogany bay (a bay that is so dark it almost looks black), and light bay (a light, yellowish shade of red).
White markings can appear on a black horse. They usually occur on its head or lower legs. These small markings don’t classify the horse as a different color. Some black horses fade in color due to sun exposure over time. They are still considered to be black. Black horses that don’t fade in color over time are called jet black or raven black.
Brown is sometimes considered a shade of bay horse instead of a separate color. In this case it is called a dark bay.
Buckskin horses often have a long dorsal stripe running down the length of their back. A standard buckskin is called a yellow buckskin. They have a medium yellow coat color all over. Some examples of buckskin color variations are dusty buckskin (a dark brownish-yellow shade), golden buckskin (a dark golden shade), and silvery buckskin (a shade so light that it almost looks silver).
To consider a horse a grulla, each individual body hair has to be the same smoky gray color. The coat should not be a blend of white hairs and colored hairs.
Flaxen chestnuts are a variety of chestnuts with much lighter tails and manes. The tails and manes should be a pale yellow color to classify a chestnut as a flaxen. A light chestnut, or sandy chestnut, is a variety of chestnut horse with a sand-colored body, legs, mane, and tail.
Palominos are differentiated by names like golden palomino, chocolate palomino, or yellow palomino to describe the different shades of their body color.
The coat of a red dun can be varying shades of red or reddish yellow. The mane and tail can be lighter or darker than the body color. Try to glimpse a look at its skin. Duns have black skin, and you can check this by gently separating a part of the coat and taking a peek. Look at its coat. Duns have a yellowish color coat which makes them mistakable for palomino horses, the difference being that duns have black manes and tails, whereas a palomino’s mane and tail will be the same color as its coat or lighter. Dun, also called bay dun, classic dun, or zebra dun is the most common type of dun, and has a tan or gold body with black mane, tail, and primitive markings. Genetically, the horse has an underlying bay coat color, acted upon by the dun gene.
Perlino is a variation of the cremello color in which little amounts of a coffee or cream color are mixed in to the mane, tale, and lower legs of the horse. Smokey cream or smokey perlino are names used when there are higher concentrations of these colors in the horse.
