A Palomino horse immediately catches the eye , this breed is not like others that are easy to confuse because even non-experts cannot fail to notice the wonderful and rare color of its coat, a golden ochre colored coat that is accompanied by a mane and tail that tend towards silvery white . This characteristic distinguishes some American breeds but in the Palomino it stands out more than ever and has become distinctive of the breed.
Palomino Horse: Origins
The Palomino as a breed in America where there is the Palomino Horse Association, a federation that lends itself to passing on and improving the Palomino through the registration of bloodlines and the issuing of certificates for the qualification of horses.
There is, however, a legend surrounding the origins of these horses, a legend that takes us back to the old continent and more precisely to Spain. It is said that the name Palomino derives from Don Juan de Palomino, a Spanish man who received as a gift from the conquistador Hernan Cortes a horse with the coat and physique that we see today in this breed.
This legend fits well with the reality of the facts we know because it seems that it was the Spanish who introduced this horse to America, responsible for the golden color of other coats of horses of other breeds: the Quarter Horse, the English Thoroughbred, the Saddlebred . We also find this color in the Arabian although in truth there are no purebred Arabian horses of this color and they are used in crossbreeding to produce this color.
This special light coat is said to be a legacy of the Lusitanian horse and is called Isabela , like the queen who favored the propagation of this color, pure and light, like that of a new coin and free of stains or signs of wear.
Palomino Horse: Characteristics
The coat color as you will have understood is the characteristic trait of this breed that is sometimes crossed with the chestnut when you want to obtain a golden coat of a more intense shade, alternatively the chestnut can be crossed with the cream color. For the rest this horse has a physical structure of medium size , its height at the withers can vary from 144 to 163 cm and its rather strong body can remind that of an Arabian or a Thoroughbred or a Quarter Horse.
However, there are some characteristics that are required to belong to this breed, such as the color of the eyes, which must be dark or tending towards hazel , and the presence of white markings on the muzzle, which must be limited to a spot, stripe or star.
Even the mane and tail are not enough to be light in color, they are in a certain sense measured in this too, because in theory they must not contain more than 15% dark hair . The colors of this horse are observed very carefully and according to the standard the specimens of this breed cannot have spots on the legs, or if they do they must remain below the knee. Also banned from the Palomino breed are zebra stripes on the legs or the trace of a mule stripe on the back.
Palomino Horse: Genetics
Behind this dazzling coat, there is genetics, a scientific explanation for such beauty. It is all due to the gene (Cr) that codes for this coat, the one of the cream dilution or incomplete dominant cremello, which in a single dose (heterozygosis) causes the reduction of about 50% of the red pigment (pheomelanin) of the chestnut coat.
So when a palomino horse is crossed with another palomino, only 50% of the time another palomino is born. If this does not happen we can expect a chestnut horse (25% probability) or a cremello (25% probability). For this reason many argue that the Palomino should not be considered a breed but only a color variety.
Palomino Horse: Breeding
Whether it is a true breed or not, the Palomino is a type of horse that has become much loved and populated in the world, starting from America where we have seen that there is even a dedicated association, the American Palomino Horse Association , responsible for registering subjects that present very specific morphological aspects.
In order for a horse to be registered by the association, at least one of the parents must already be present in the register and the other can be a Quarter Horse, an Arabian or an English Thoroughbred. American breeders, in an attempt to obtain foals of this beautiful color, have studied various crosses, noting that the only guaranteed way to obtain them is to mate chestnut horses with cremello horses.