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Champagne on Black
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A Dark Classic, owned by Rita Gambino, Bayport, Long Island, New York
<= Click picture to see full size; to view her pedigree click here;
to see her Gold Champagne daughter click here.
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"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 beauty will speak for itself. It's considered difficult to
photograph accurately, and has even been described as "lilac"; in
fact, this is one color that has been called "lilac dun" in the past.
The body will usually be an unusual shade of deep dove grey, and the points
will be a darker shade of the same color.
This webmaster likes to use the word " taupe" for this color.
Here are close-ups of the "Champagne Points" of the Classic
Champagne colored Quarter Horse mare, Ms Dowdy Doc Bars.
Pictures and names of some other Classic Champagne horses are below.
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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.
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This thumbnail enlarges to a close-up of her muzzle, showing the
typical purplish-grey freckles on pink skin.
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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.
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24 year old half-Arab, half - Saddlebred. Color traces
to Palomino Peavine.
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Mark's Cindy, a Dark Classic
Champagne Missouri Fox Trotter mare, owned by Bob
and Charlotte Blackwell
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Little Nikita, a Classic Champagne
(tentative) Grulla QH mare owned
by Ruth Lewis of Cleves, OH.
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Classic Champagne Sparkle, #58, by #50. 2001 MFT filly. Owned by
Myrna Warfel of Missouri.
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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.
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