Horses are large and strong animals, communication with which has long attracted people. At the same time, horses are very diverse: there are many breeds and colors of these animals.
Bay suit
The color of the horse's hide, which is commonly referred to as color by horse professionals, is one of its main characteristics. Experts usually distinguish black, bay, red, gray and piebald suits. In this case, the first four types of color are one-color pigmentation of the horse's skin. But piebald is the type of color that is characterized by the presence of large spots.
A common characteristic of all bay horses is the brown color of the animal's skin. At the same time, such a suit includes the most diverse shades of it: from reddish brown to a dark, almost black shade of this color. At the same time, however, there is a strict condition, the fulfillment of which is mandatory in order to classify a particular horse as a representative of the bay suit: its mane, tail and lower limbs must be black.
Horse breeding statistics claim that the bay color is the most common color option for horses. Perhaps this is due to the fact that the bay suit has a large number of color variations. Due to this, a significant number of individuals fall under the definition, which at first glance are quite different from each other.
Variations of a bay suit
Since the bay suit is very diverse, it is customary among specialists to distinguish subspecies of colors related to it in order to identify individual individuals. So, among the main options for the bay suit are light bay and dark bay colors. A light chestnut horse usually has a lighter shade of brown, close to ocher, but its legs, mane and tail should still be brown or black. A dark chestnut horse has the darkest, almost black shade of the skin on the back, neck and head and black legs, but its belly can be somewhat lighter. There is also a so-called deer-bay color, which combines elements of a dark bay and light bay color.
Another interesting variation of the bay color is the fly-brown color: such a horse has light yellow markings on the muzzle, groin and, possibly, on the folds of the limbs and buttocks. The chestnut and cherry colors have, respectively, rich chestnut and reddish shades of color, the golden suit is painted in a color close to yellow. Finally, the karak color is almost completely black, with only occasional brown markings on the muzzle and groin.
