Bay pearl

Appearance

Foals		Apricot or peachy color of the body, with darker points. The skin is pink and mottled. The eyes are light and may darken a bit with age.

Foals

Apricot or peachy color of the body, with

darker points. The skin is pink and mottled.

The eyes are light and may darken a bit with

age.

Pearl on a bay base results in a pale apricot color of the body, with darker points. The skin is pink and mottled, and the eyes are amber colored.		Adults

Pearl on a bay base results in a pale apricot

color of the body, with darker points. The

skin is pink and mottled, and the eyes are

amber colored.

Adults

Mimics

Pearl horses can, in some cases, look almost identical to champagne horses: both have freckles/mottled skin, amber eyes, pinkish skin, and their coat colors can look very similar.

Genetics

Bay pearl is the result of a bay base diluted by two copies of pearl. The pearl (prl) dilution is an allele of the MATP gene.

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Bay pearl:
Bay (E/_ A/_) + prl/prl

Horses with only one copy of pearl are called pearl carriers. They might not show a visible difference, but they can pass the allele on to their foals!

Read more:
Chestnut | Chestnut pearl | Black pearl | Palomino pearl |

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Articles

Sevane, N., Sanz, C.R., Dunner, S., Sevane, N., Sanz, C.R., Dunner, S.; Explicit evidence for a missense mutation in exon 4 of SLC45A2 gene causing the pearl coat dilution in horses; Animal Genetics (2019); Doi: 10.1111/age.12784