Appearance
| Foals |  |
Buckskin foals usually have a golden coat color, but the coat can also be very dark on seal brown foals. Similar to bay, they usually have greyish or lighter points and soft parts because of foal camo. The points can take a long time to darken fully. |
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The coat of bay-based horses is diluted to a yellow or gold color. The shade can range from creamy to a very dark (in seal brown horses) color. Light buckskins are sometimes called "buttermilk". The points remain black in color and are not diluted. Buckskins can have frosting in their mane and tail. |  |
Adults |
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Mimics
The shade of buckskin horses can look similar to that of bay horses diluted by dun. However, the dun dilution also causes primitive markings, which are not present on buckskin horses.
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Bay dun |
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Very dark/ seal brown buckskins can be easily mistaken for a regular seal brown horse when the number of yellow hairs is only minimal.
In young horses, buckskin could be confused with palomino if the points haven't turned dark yet. Dark or seal brown buckskin foals can look similar to bay.
Genetics
Buckskin is the result of a bay base diluted by one copy of cream. The cream (CR) dilution is an allele of the MATP gene.
Bay (E/_ A/_) + CR/n
Read more:
Bay | Palomino | Smoky black
Articles
- Locke, M. M., Ruth, L. S., Millon, L .V., Penedo, M. C. T., Murray, J. D., & Bowling, A. T.; The cream dilution gene, responsible for the palomino and buckskin coat colours, maps to horse chromosome 21. Animal Genetics (2001); doi: 10.1046/j.1365-2052.2001.00806.x
- Mariat, D., Taourit, S., & Guérin, G.; A mutation in the MATP gene causes the cream coat colour in the horse. Genetics Selection Evolution (2003); doi: 10.1051/gse:2002039
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