Roan (horse)

Roan is a horse coat color pattern characterized by an even mixture of colored and white hairs on the body, while the head and "points"—lower legs, mane and tail—are mostly solid-colored. Horses with roan coats have white hairs evenly intermingled throughout any other color. The head, legs, mane and tail have fewer scattered white hairs or none at all. The roan pattern is dominantly-inherited, and is found in many horse breeds. While the specific mutation responsible for roan has not been exactly identified, a DNA test can determine zygosity for roan in several breeds. True roan is always present at birth, though it may be hard to see until after the foal coat sheds out. The coat may lighten or darken from winter to summer, but unlike the gray coat color, which also begins with intermixed white and colored hairs, roans do not become progressively lighter in color as they age. The silvering effect of mixed white and colored hairs can create coats that look bluish or pinkish.

Horses with the roan pattern have an even mixture of white and colored hairs in the coat. These interspersed white hairs are more scattered or absent on the horse's head, mane, tail, and lower legs. The unaffected color on the legs often forms a sharp, inverted "V" above the knee and hock, not seen in other roan-like coat patterns. The non-white background coat may be any color, as determined by unrelated genetic factors.

Often, the background coat color is used in combination with the word "roan" to describe the shade of a roan horse's coat, such as bay roan or gold champagne roan. However, there are also colloquial terms used for some colors. The most common terms for various roan colors are the following:

Some roan horses have more white hair than others, and even individual horses may look lighter or darker based on the season and their coats may vary from year to year. While roan is always present at birth, the soft first coat of newborn foals may not show the white hairs well. Some roan horses get darker with age. Generally, roans appear to have more white hair when they have their short summer coats and darker when they have their winter coats. These peculiar tendencies of roans led to the Icelandic word for roan, which translates as "always changing color."

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