Black pearl

Appearance

Foals		Dark apricot or tan 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

Dark apricot or tan 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 black base results in an apricot/tan body with darker points. The skin is pink and mottled, and the eyes are amber colored.		Adults

Pearl on a black base results in an apricot/tan

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

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

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Black pearl:
Black (E/_ a/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:
Black | Chestnut pearl | Bay pearl | Palomino pearl

Back to Pearl

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