Chestnut pearl

Appearance

Foals		Pale apricot or peachy color of the body, mane and tail. The skin is pink and mottled. The eyes are light and may darken a bit with age.

Foals

Pale apricot or peachy color of the body,

mane and tail. The skin is pink and mottled.

The eyes are light and may darken a bit with

age.

Pearl on a chestnut base results in a pale, uniform apricot color of the body, mane and tail. The skin is pink and mottled, and the eyes are amber colored.		Adults

Pearl on a chestnut base results in a pale,

uniform apricot color of the body, mane and tail.

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

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

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Chestnut pearl:
Chestnut (e/e) + 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 | Black 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