Solids of all kinds, spotted, striped, speckled, flecked or dappled - just what color IS that horse you're riding? The horses at Black Mountain Ranch come in a wide range of colors and patterns so we thought our guests might like to learn how to tell some of them apart. In this article, we’ll be looking at solid colored horses. Solid-colored horses can be grouped into several “families” of similar colors. Probably the most common family is that of bay horses. These are red or brown horses with black trim or “points” (the mane, tail and lower legs). The same red or brown horse without the black trim would be part of the chestnut family. Chestnuts are probably the second most common family of horse colors. Black is a popular, but sometimes hard to identify, color. The difficulty arises because some black horses have hair that bleaches to dark or reddish-brown in the sun while others don’t. If you want to know if that dark brown horse you’re riding is really black, look at the fine hairs on its face. If those hairs are black, then so is the horse - no matter what the rest of it looks like! Gray is another family of colors that can be confusing. A gray horse usually starts out as any of the darker colors and turns gray with age. Many eventually turn completely white - although they may pass through several shades of gray in the process. So don’t expect the gray horse you rode a couple of years ago to look the same this year! All gray horses (even when pure white) have dark skin and eyes. The remaining colors we’re going to look at in this article are what might be called the “diluted” colors. These horses are a paler or diluted version of the colors above. The most common members of this family are buckskin and Palomino. Buckskins are diluted bays; yellowish or tan in color with black points. Palominos are diluted chestnuts; they come in various shades of gold with manes and tails that are white or cream. These are just some of the more common solid colors in horses and only a fraction of all the colors and patterns that can be found in these amazing animals. Contact us for your next horse riding adventure and enjoy all of the different colors in our horse herd!