A Horse Of A Different Color

My favorite scene in the movie The Wizard of Oz has always been when Dorothy and her friends finally reach the Emerald city. In this scene, the audience is introduced to the Horse of a Different Color.

Dorothy is immediately wide-eyed upon viewing the horse and his suddenly-changing color.

She asks the carriage driver, What kind of horse is that? I've never seen a horse like that before! He responds, No, and never will again, I fancy! There's only one of him, and he's it. He's the Horse of a Different Color you've heard tell about! The horse proceeds to change colors several more times, each time growing increasingly fascinating to me. He seemed so magical. Later, I learned MGM actually used gelatin to dye the horse his various shades, but seeing it in the movie still makes me smile.

While no horse existing in the real world naturally changes its coat from green to blue and purple, several rare coat colors and markings have historically been noted.

One of the rarest is brindle coloring in horses. Most commonly seen in certain dog breeds, such as the pit bull, horses can come in a brindle coat also. Brindle striping is when thin strips of various colors run vertically down the horse's body. The streaks are usually raised and darker in color. This color scheme is most likely in horses with a dark coat, but has been found in light coats such as the Palomino.

Lace/Giraffe is a type of marking named for its similarity to a giraffe's coat. While some people have referred to the pattern as cobweb, cobweb is actually a term for a pattern appearing in dark hair on some dun horses, and is thus not appropriate for this pattern. At first sight, many thought the pattern was created by a fungus causing the hair to grow back in white, and the seeming pattern was merely incidental. Most often seen in miniature horses, the pattern has been called cobweb, lace, marbling or giraffe.

Occasionally some horses retain long hair along their back (dorsal) or stomach (ventral), even after they have shed their winter coat, displaying what is called a Dorsal/Ventral mane. In dun horses, especially on the foals, the stripe down the back will often be of slightly longer hair and may be the remnant of a dorsal mane from earlier horse ancestors.

Tan instead of white markings rarely occur and are the most unique colorings. The tan can represent every normally-white part of the horse. For example, a piebald paint horse ordinarily white and black would be tan and black. Sometimes just a section, such as a stocking, can be tan instead of its typical white shade.

Through crossbreeding and the power of genetics, horses come in all shapes and colors. The Horse of a Different Color might only live on in the hearts of The Wizard of Oz fans, but nature has definitely given him a run for his money.