Cream-diluted coats
Perlino
A perlino horse has very pale cream hair on its trunk and neck. Its mane, tail and lower legs may retain a stronger beige or reddish tint. Skin is pink and eyes are usually blue.
Perlino: how the color works and is inherited
Perlino combines a bay base with two Cream variant copies in SLC45A2. Those copies lighten the bay horse’s red hair and the black pigment of its mane, tail and legs.
A perlino receives one Cream copy from each parent and passes one to every foal. Two Cream copies explain its pale color; they do not identify a particular breed.
Perlino: origins and the role of breeding
Cream coats come from a naturally occurring variant of SLC45A2. Ancient DNA shows that this variant existed almost 3,000 years ago, including in buckskin horses from Siberia. Identifying the genetic mechanism in 2003 explained a color that had already existed for a long time.
Breeders can favor perlino by choosing parents able to pass on a bay base and two Cream copies. The coat results from the combination of variants the foal inherits.
Perlino: photographs of horses
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Samovar, a perlino Akhal-Teke stallion.
A perlino stallion’s head, with pink skin and pale mane.
A young perlino brumby with a very pale coat.
RE Coronado di Catalano, a perlino Spanish Barb stallion.
A perlino Akhal-Teke’s lower leg with a white marking.
Annalisa Parisi, cropped --Kersti (talk) 18:41, 3 March 2009 (UTC) · CC BY-SA 3.0
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Samovar: golden-beige mane on a perlino horse.
Photograph credits
Photographs have been resized. Photographs within scientific figures have been separated by cropping. Colors are preserved.
- Samovar, a perlino Akhal-Teke stallion. — Heather Moreton · CC BY 2.0
- A perlino stallion’s head, with pink skin and pale mane. — Tsaag Valren · CC BY-SA 4.0
- A young perlino brumby with a very pale coat. — Cgoodwin · Public domain
- RE Coronado di Catalano, a perlino Spanish Barb stallion. — Spanishbarbs · CC BY-SA 4.0
- A perlino Akhal-Teke’s lower leg with a white marking. — Annalisa Parisi, cropped --Kersti (talk) 18:41, 3 March 2009 (UTC) · CC BY-SA 3.0
- Samovar: golden-beige mane on a perlino horse. — Heather Moreton from Louisville, KY, USA · CC BY 2.0
Perlino: telling similar coats apart
A perlino’s mane can be more strongly colored than a cremello’s, but shades overlap. Base-color testing distinguishes a bay base from a chestnut base.