International Champagne Horse Registry

Classic
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Classic


Champagne on Black

Champagne Showcase, a Classic Champagne TWH stallion owned by Maxine Doner

"Classic" is the rarest, and perhaps the most exotic, of the Champagne colors.

It is rare because it is the result of the champagne gene acting on a solid black base coat.*

Its exotic quality will speak for itself.  It's considered difficult to photograph accurately, and has sometimes been described as "lilac"; in fact, this is one color that has been called "lilac dun" in the past.  Others say it looks "green".
One might use the description "dark taupe" for this color.


Here are close-ups of the "Champagne characteristics" of the Classic Champagne colored
Quarter Horse mare, Ms Dowdy Doc Bars.

Pictures and names of some other Classic Champagne horses are below.
Click this thumbnail picture to see full size

If you click on this thumbnail you will see a very large version of this picture, showing the amber eye color
and freckled skin around the eye, typical of horses with Champagne coloring.

Click this thumbnail picture to see full size

This thumbnail enlarges to a close-up of her muzzle, showing the typical purplish-gray freckles on pink skin.

Click this thumbnail picture to see full size

Since most areas of a horse are covered by hair, one has to look in some private places to see more exposed skin.  This mare shows the characteristic freckled skin under the tail, though her private parts are darker than most champagnes.
On a Gold champagne horse, this is not how the under-tail skin would look.  It would be a Palomino. 
This mare is unusually dark all over, even for a classic. 

OTHER EXAMPLES OF CLASSIC CHAMPAGNE:

Click this thumbnail picture to see full size

Champagne Showcase,
a Classic Champagne TWH stallion
owned by Maxine Doner

Champagne Justice E/T
Classic Champagne Missouri Fox Trotter stallion
owned by Merv and Diane Reichle of NM

el_neeto_body.jpg (12634 bytes)

24 year old half-Arab, half - Saddlebred.
Color traces to Palomino Peavine.

wpe1.jpg (12333 bytes)

Emerald Buddha
Percheron/QH cross mare
owned by Beth Esfandiari

cindy_look.jpg (45019 bytes)

Mark's Cindy, a Dark Classic Champagne
Missouri Fox Trotter mare,
owned by
Bob and Charlotte Blackwell

Little Nikita, a Classic Champagne (tentative) Grulla
QH mare owned by Ruth Lewis of Cleves, OH.

Classic Champagne Sparkle - r.jpg (51647 bytes)

Classic Champagne Sparkle, #58, by #50. 
2001 MFT filly.
Owned by Myrna Warfel of Missouri.

To see more Classic Champagnes, check out our STUD BOOK.


* Solid black is a relatively rare color because most horses in the world carry a gene, called "agouti", which changes solid black to bay, by confining the black color to the horse's "points"; i.e. mane, tail, sometimes the face, & legs.  This is a long way of saying bay is the most common horse color, not black, or even chestnut.


ICHR
PO Box 4430
Paso Robles, CA 93447-4430

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ICHR is not, and never was, connected with
any other Champagne organization.
Web & Graphics Design copyright © 2015
by Barbara A Kostelnik (see Hippo-Logistics.com )
Please remember that all graphics and text on this site, as on all of the WWW, are automatically copyrighted,  including the exhaustive
pedigree and color research 
that our president, Carolyn Shepard, has done.
If you'd like to use something from this site, 
please email us for permission.

Emailing ICHR:  Horse color questions will not be answered without the horse's breed and registered name, if any.  Due to the extensive research conducted by the ICHR, we are usually able to determine if a horse has champagne in its pedigree by recognizing the names of ancestors we have determined were champagne,
listed in the right column of each
entry in our
stud book.
ASK about "grade" horses,  please.

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