Horse coats come in a wonderful array of shades and patterns, all beautiful in their own right, but a blood bay horse color is one of the most stunning. What makes this striking color?
Bay is one of the most common horse colors. However, the bay is a broad term, as there are many shades that fall into this category. Even though the bay has several shades, there are ...
Skewbald is a horse with a pattern of white and bay, or white and chestnut. You will mostly hear the term Skewbald in the UK and Ireland. In the United States, you will ...
The hair on bay horses often has two tones. This is one reason why there is such a variety of shades. It is also one reason why bay horses can look much dark with their winter coats.
Now that you have a basic understanding of the variety of bay coats you will see, let’s take a look at genetics. This is where things can get confusing, so let’s go back to one basic ...
The agouti gene is the main influencer for bay coat colors. Within agouti, there are two alleles, ‘A’, which is dominant, and ‘a’, which is recessive. It is ‘A’ that determines ...
A blood bay horse color means that the horse has rich red tones in its coat. Sometimes these horses can even have a purple tint in their coat. In the domestic horse population, a bay coat does not give any benefit over other colors.