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The Color of Horses: The Scientific and Authoritative Identification of the Color of the Horse
The Color of Horses describes various horse breeds and their characteristics, then addresses the two main color "intense" colors, such as bay, brown, black, grey, and dun, and "self" colors, such as chestnut, sorrel, buckskin, and copper dun. Popular and respected among horse breeders, traders, owners, riders, and admirers, The Color of Horses is a standard reference for race tracks, farms, and ranches worldwide. Contains 34 color illustrations.
- GenresNonfiction
127 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1974
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
November 7, 2021
After reading Horse Color Explained, I thought I would go back to Ben K. Green's book, The Color Of The Horse. Green was a veterinarian, but before that he was a cowboy and horse trader in a time period when horses and mules were still the main source of transportation and....well, horsepower. Farms still used horse or mule teams, people still drove buggies and wagons, and the society folk still wanted good horses to show off with.
Green starts this book with a chapter called Insight Into Horse Color, where he explains a bit about his life and how he came to work on the project which led to this book. Before he was old enough to go to school, he had a little job washing buggy wheels at the local livery stable, and he would listen to the men discussing horse color. He says everyone had a favorite color for various reasons. This fired up his curiosity:
"As a small boy, so far as I was concerned, walking was all took up when I was born. I saddled a horse after breakfast and unsaddled before I went to bed the first twenty-five to thirty years of my life and decided early that if color had anything to do with stamina, intelligence or soundness, I had better learn about it."
He approached the issue by collecting certain colors of horses for his own cowboy string to test the theories about dun horses being the hardiest. He concluded that they were, but his theory as to why has less to do with color than with the fact that at that time, most dun/buckskin/grulla horses were what he calls western bred types, without any Thoroughbred breeding to soften them up or make them too hot-blooded to have common sense.
Eventually, as the years went by, he traveled the world buying and selling horses for the government, learning more as he went. Somewhere in those years he became a veterinarian and began a little side project in which he examined the hairs of different colored horses by splitting them in half and examining them under a microscope. So rather then a book focused on the genetics of color (cross a this color with a that color and you will get a which color) we have here a book that illustrates horse color and shows diagrams of the inside of the hairs which make up that color.
I thought it was fascinating. There are beautiful color paintings for each color that Green discusses, and at first I thought that photographs would have been better, but there is a page at the very end which explains why the author and his editors chose to use paintings instead, and it made a lot of sense. Also I got a kick out of Green's old-time cowboy attitude. He had practical experience, picked up during a lifetime of working with and caring for horses, and the five years of splitting hairs and examining hides.
This book has been in my library for many years and I periodically take it out to reread and drool over the stunning illustrations. I do not necessarily have a favorite horse color, I love horses no matter what color they are, but I must confess to a few slight prejudices. I have never met a pinto horse that was not a little stupid, and I would not want to deal with the issues involved with most white horses. Grey horses that turn white over time are one thing, but horses that are born all white will have many more problems with their eyes, skin and hooves than horses with actual color have to deal with.
While I was reading this book, I decided that the next book in my end-of-the-year horse fit needed to be Ben K. Green's Horse Tradin', another book I have had for many years and have read many times pre-GR. Actually, I have already started reading, I just need to go make it official.
Green starts this book with a chapter called Insight Into Horse Color, where he explains a bit about his life and how he came to work on the project which led to this book. Before he was old enough to go to school, he had a little job washing buggy wheels at the local livery stable, and he would listen to the men discussing horse color. He says everyone had a favorite color for various reasons. This fired up his curiosity:
"As a small boy, so far as I was concerned, walking was all took up when I was born. I saddled a horse after breakfast and unsaddled before I went to bed the first twenty-five to thirty years of my life and decided early that if color had anything to do with stamina, intelligence or soundness, I had better learn about it."
He approached the issue by collecting certain colors of horses for his own cowboy string to test the theories about dun horses being the hardiest. He concluded that they were, but his theory as to why has less to do with color than with the fact that at that time, most dun/buckskin/grulla horses were what he calls western bred types, without any Thoroughbred breeding to soften them up or make them too hot-blooded to have common sense.
Eventually, as the years went by, he traveled the world buying and selling horses for the government, learning more as he went. Somewhere in those years he became a veterinarian and began a little side project in which he examined the hairs of different colored horses by splitting them in half and examining them under a microscope. So rather then a book focused on the genetics of color (cross a this color with a that color and you will get a which color) we have here a book that illustrates horse color and shows diagrams of the inside of the hairs which make up that color.
I thought it was fascinating. There are beautiful color paintings for each color that Green discusses, and at first I thought that photographs would have been better, but there is a page at the very end which explains why the author and his editors chose to use paintings instead, and it made a lot of sense. Also I got a kick out of Green's old-time cowboy attitude. He had practical experience, picked up during a lifetime of working with and caring for horses, and the five years of splitting hairs and examining hides.
This book has been in my library for many years and I periodically take it out to reread and drool over the stunning illustrations. I do not necessarily have a favorite horse color, I love horses no matter what color they are, but I must confess to a few slight prejudices. I have never met a pinto horse that was not a little stupid, and I would not want to deal with the issues involved with most white horses. Grey horses that turn white over time are one thing, but horses that are born all white will have many more problems with their eyes, skin and hooves than horses with actual color have to deal with.
While I was reading this book, I decided that the next book in my end-of-the-year horse fit needed to be Ben K. Green's Horse Tradin', another book I have had for many years and have read many times pre-GR. Actually, I have already started reading, I just need to go make it official.
September 14, 2025
The text is useless. It was written in 1974 by an ignorant Texan veterinarian who was proud of his ignorance and says so repeatedly. He had a guess about how to determine a horse's true color by fooling with hair off of a fresh hide -- and his guess was wrong, wrong, wrong, as proved by DNA research by real scientists in recent decades.
His point is that all books about animal genetics are wrong -- except his. Oh, you can trust his book, though. (Eyeroll.)
Green also made up horse color classifications that may have been terms in his part of Texas, but nowhere else, such as raven black. He insisted that sorrels and chestnuts were different colors, when they were just two different words for the same color. Appaloosa and pinto patterns are basically dismissed with a shrug.
He also describes the prejudices about certain horse colors during his lifetime. Most of this is nonsense. Some of this is horrific, since he claimed to ride horses so hard in his youth that the horses were more or less useless in a few years. He also bred large numbers of horses just to see the colors of the foals. He never said what he did with the foals. He treated horses as disposable, so they probably all went to slaughter, if he couldn't find buyers for them.
He also had a prejudice against Mustangs, preferring to call them "native breds" instead. He's the only author to do so.
I bought a copy of the 1983 edition in the 1990s, before I started learning about genetics. But even THEN I knew the text of this book was almost entirely bullshit.
The only good thing about this book are the full-color paintings, which were mostly done from photographs. I'd have loved to see the photo of that red roan Standardbred, since that color had basically vanished from the breed by 1974.
His point is that all books about animal genetics are wrong -- except his. Oh, you can trust his book, though. (Eyeroll.)
Green also made up horse color classifications that may have been terms in his part of Texas, but nowhere else, such as raven black. He insisted that sorrels and chestnuts were different colors, when they were just two different words for the same color. Appaloosa and pinto patterns are basically dismissed with a shrug.
He also describes the prejudices about certain horse colors during his lifetime. Most of this is nonsense. Some of this is horrific, since he claimed to ride horses so hard in his youth that the horses were more or less useless in a few years. He also bred large numbers of horses just to see the colors of the foals. He never said what he did with the foals. He treated horses as disposable, so they probably all went to slaughter, if he couldn't find buyers for them.
He also had a prejudice against Mustangs, preferring to call them "native breds" instead. He's the only author to do so.
I bought a copy of the 1983 edition in the 1990s, before I started learning about genetics. But even THEN I knew the text of this book was almost entirely bullshit.
The only good thing about this book are the full-color paintings, which were mostly done from photographs. I'd have loved to see the photo of that red roan Standardbred, since that color had basically vanished from the breed by 1974.
May 18, 2009
This book is amazing. Hair follicle diagrams!
September 5, 2018
Most interesting outcome from my reading this book was that it inspired me to do some research into the life of author, Dr. Ben K. Green. Somewhere in my research I read the words he crawled out of the cradle and into a saddle and those words encapsulate why his writings that involve horses are so valued. He lived what he wrote. He had experiences that are now a part of bygone years. I have purchased several of his other books for my husband but have not read them myself. Oh I have read portions of the books and enjoyed the tales, but have never read his other books in entirety. This book, however, really intrigued me because it tells of Green's intense interest in finding out what causes the different colors of horses. He was so fascinated by the various colors of horses that he implemented research that ultimately led to his deep understanding of horse color and that research inspired Green to write this book. The book helps readers to understand coat color through diagrams of a strand of horse hair and scientific explanation. But, this book is absolutely not complicated by scientific terminology. It's all explained in easy to understand layman terms. To aid understanding, he classifies all the commonly known horse colors and shades into two groups: self and intense colors. His explanations, descriptions, and diagrams provides a base of knowledge that helps readers understand the science behind the basic colors of horses and how the colors are controlled by genes.
September 26, 2020
Beautiful and interesting! This book shows “Green's intense interest in finding out what causes the different colors of horses. He was so fascinated by the various colors of horses that he implemented research that ultimately led to his deep understanding of horse color and that research inspired Green to write this book. The book helps readers to understand coat color through diagrams of a strand of horse hair ...” He also discusses the usefulness of the different colors of horses.
September 13, 2008
This is one of the MANY books my dad owns that I used to read. When I was little I would spend time laying by his bookshelves reading through them. This was my favorite! Ben Green is one of the last real horse traders and he tells all about each color of horse and about some breeds. He has really pretty painted pictures of each horse in this book.
March 18, 2015
I loved this book for the information on colour and the history of the horse and the cowboy. The pictures are outstanding. It is easy to read/understand. Dr Green is likely deceased now but he left a legacy for anyone interested in horses.
January 29, 2009
Very interesting facts about horses and their coats of many colors. Beautiful paintings of all the different breeds.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews