I have noticed several Arabians that have iridescent or metallic coat highlights. I realise in some cases this is enhanced by grooming products but I have also seen it on horses at pasture. I also remember reading about an old Davenport stallion - again at pasture- whose coat glistened in this way. So I was wondering if this is just an occasional occurence or if it runs in certain lines?

As far as my experience goes it runs it certain lines. Our old desert stallion Mehrez had it and threw it, also our homebred Farid. The coat glistens not unlike that of the Akhal Teke horses (but in those it is always present I believe and is an identifying mark of the breed. ) It is very attractive and as you mention has nothing to do with enhancers!

Hopefully, my friend, Gari Dill-Marlow will see this topic and respond, as she had first hand experience with this iridescent coat sheen on the Charles Craver (USA) horses and with the preserved hide of Skowronek (which still has this sheen-it actually glows).

If you go to the website of the Amiri Stud in Bahrain (use google to find it), you will also see this quality in the horses pictured.

What does it mean? In some private conversations that I have enjoyed, some believe that this is a sign of purity, as well as the larger braincase that most of these metallic horses also enjoy.

How boring would life be without all of these mysteries?

Ralph

I, too, had a Davenport stallion (Nahas #4399--no that is not a typo on the reg.# ) who had that extreme "glisten" to his hair. Also the THINEST skin imaginable. At that time, sleeping sickness shots were given between the layers of the skin. An almost impossible task with Nahas & his get. All inherited the very thin skin, not all got the "glisten" Unfortunately , he also rather consistantly passed on some serious conformation faults, so his blood was lost to me. To his credit, the dispositions of his foals was the BEST

Does anyone have pictures of Arabians with this? I know Akhal Tekes are know for their iridescent coats, but I've never heard of it occuring in Arabians.

I've got the information, that *Neman (Nabeg x Nega) born in Tersk was "Gold" coloured with metallic highlights. I have seen his daughter Nascha (Neman x Neschi by Kilimandscharo) last summer and she is really "golden". A golden horse on the pasture in a herd of chestnut, bay and grey mares. Incredible!

I have also had a stallion here who had this metalic sheen but he was of polish bloodlines, a Palas (Aswan) son. He also had the thinnest, finest, quality of hair in his mane and tail - it was like baby hair, and shining, gleaming silver. He would be described as grey but I would call him silver. He had the finest coat I have ever seen in an arabian even in our cold northen winter they wasn't much thickness and in the summer it was so so short. And he was so refined and "dry" - he was a true aristocrat of the breed.

Thanks all for your input.
Ralph I believe the articlewith the stallion may have been by Gari in the Crabbet Influence - I will try and hunt it down- so I would be very interested to hear her views. I didn't know about the Skowronek hide? Two of the horses I have had that showed this coat colour were both grandsons of Indian King(Oran x Indian Pride - Irex) - I wonder if it comes through Irex?

Anyway, I had a fascinating 'trip' around the Bahraini website! How sad the Wadnan strain only has one surviving stallion - isn't this the strain of the Barton Lodge horses eg Zehraa, Kazra etc?

It is interesting how far and wide these coat colours show up with the examples you have all given - I would like to think there is a link to purity.

Nadir I has this golden shimmer too. Fascinating. His owner is sax- arabians in Germany.
Nina

Hi Folks,

According to Rosemary Archer, all the old Crabbet desert lines had iridescent coats. Certainly when we visited the British Museum to see Skowronek's hide and skull( both labeled in Lady W's hand-there are 'experts' that say that it isn't for what reason I've no idea....they've not seen it 'in the flesh' so to speak'...we did) we were stunned by the hide's glow. The enclosed photo was taken with 400 film under a 40 watt bulb...the only light available. Mrs. Archer is holding the hide and look how flat her clothes are comparatively, even tho' under the same light.

*Rushan (the majority of dam lines in his pedigree trace to the desert) has that iridescent quality as well as EVERY Davenport I've ever seen.

Here is Skowronek's:

Here is the straight Davenport, incredibly beautiful 1976 stallion Plantagenet-this photo is the clearest example of iridescence....

Antham has it too and think you can just see it in his coat:

My stallion has this iridescent also. He is Crabbet/Old English by General Gold. His breeding goes back to Irex. People who come to see him will ask if I brush him fo hours to get the shine. But I don't have to it's all natural. I find that when I bathe him it shines even more.

He also passes it on to his offspring. I'll see if this picture will be added. It's his daughter Razina Gold.

Sue.

My stallion Ramak was an iridescent chestnut. He was 3/4 Crabbet/Old English and 1/4 Polish. When brushed and standing in the sun his coat gleamed like a freshly polished gold coin, but you could see the metallic sheen even when he was dirty from bathing in a puddle and standing in the shade. He had very fine hair and skin, in summer the hair was so thin that when looking closely, you could easily see the black skin underneath, and in winter his coat was like short cut velvet.
Ramak's sire Gromet was an iridescent chestnut too, but he was darker, more like bronze while Ramak was golden. Ramak's dam Constanze was a "normal" bay mare. It was quite hard to make this shimmer visible on a photo, but here is one. As many have already said here, iridescent chestnuts quite frequently appear in English bloodlines.
Astrid

My old friend, Baskin -Robbins ( Mon Ta Basko x Diana Osaya) had a metalic bay coat. About 25% of his offspring inherited the trait, also. It had a sheen like a copper penny.

I read on another forum about the mare Nascha, bred by Mrs Garde-Ehlert, who apparently has a "golden" coat-colour.
http://www2.hs-harz.de/~u16812/bilder/nascha.jpg

Don't have time to post a picture, but here's a link to my friend's Polish/Crabbet stallion, CM Magotriz...

CM MAGOTRIZ

He is iridescent white, and just glistens!

We also had a Tornado son out of a Kilimandscharo daughter whose coat looked just like that. Very beautiful!! Wish we still had him!

Lisa

this is a Nadir I grandson who has a wonderfull gold chestnut color.

His coat is even more beautiful in reality.

a second picture

Well I really think I am getting older now - my memory is totally unreliable! Gari did write the article "State of the Union" but it was in the AHS news summer '87! It has a section on the Craver Farm Davenports. I believe the stallion I was thinking of may have been Plantagenet as he is one of the stallions pictured along with the very classic looking 30yr old Sir and the most charming photo of Charles Craver with one of the mares. Thank you Gari, it left a lasting impression on me from the following description ...

" Charles Craver swears the horses are lucky if they are brushed once in two years, yet there is not a mare or stallion on the property that does not appear as groomed carefully and thoroughly three times a day. Craver feels the unusual luminescence, with some horses looking almost as if the coats had been brushed with special oils and gold or silver dust, is a dominant genetic charcteristic of the Davenport."

Quote taken from -
Gari Dill Marlow, State of the Union, Arab Horse Society News Summer 1987

I am astonished by the Skowronek hide, I would like to see it myself one day if the opportunity ever arises.

The following is a photo of the pure Crabbet Indian Silver Moon who has a glittering coat. Another point of interest is that the chestnut gelding I owned with this coat quality also used to get 'faded' black dappling marks during extremely hot summers. Is this common also as I have never seen it with any of our other chestnuts(black dappling)?

Indian Silver Moon (not very silver but quite golden!)

Our filly Khadija out of Kaymouhna Alia (Kubinec) has a golden shimmer in her coat

and here our stallion Kuban (Kubinec) has a nice shining too


Nicole

Now that you mention Kubinec - I stood right in front of him at the Kossack Stud; he glistens a lot, too! Beautiful!

I tried posting this before but my computer got confued. I like Akhal-Tekes and came across this article on the Turanian Horse Website, explaining how the colouring works, which I thought would be of interest to y'all. Soz if it's infringing copyright or something!

In the Turkoman strains, the core is typically narrower than in other breeds, and the medulla wider. This gives more transparent area to the hair, which refracts and focuses light in much the same way as a crystal does. This structure is found whether or not the individual horse glows.Additionally, in horses that glow, the core is often broken up into small pieces, separated from each other and the space left between them filled with medulla-material. This gives even more area to actually refract light through the hair, so that in cases such as that of Kambar, almost all the shine one actually sees is light refracted through the coat, rather than topshine.

Examination of hairs from many horses shows a clear relationship between the amount of "core breakup" and how much the horse will glow. In a "moderately glowing" Turkoman, about 20-30% of the length of the individual hairs will contain cores which are broken up into individual bits as in the photo at left. In a "strongly glowing" Turkoman, 60-90% of the total length of the hairs contain be with broken cores.
Arabian horses, and some Thoroughbreds, show a slight amount of glow, almost equivalent to that of the "moderately glowing" Turkoman, due to the fact that the distal ends of their hairs, like those of the Turkoman, are completely clear

I have seen this in greys of Davenport breeding. I heard it described as "opalescent" -- the same look as a white opal. When the sun hits the coat, the reflection is many colors of the rainbow. It is a truly remarkable thing to see.

Anita

Dear Jasmin,

Thank you for remembering! It is an extraordinary thing to see those Davenports because they have in the sun- besides the iridescence....an extraordinary shimmer that rises and glows all around them....Anitae has it right about the Davenport grays....and that is what was so extraordinary about that coat of Skowroneks...it glowed under the light!

To distinguish this extraordinary coloring....look for the shimmering above the body and around it....

If the iridescence/metallic coat is a hallmark of the Akhal-Teke & the Turkcomans, ie: it is a breed characteristic....may we then logically infer that an Arab showing that type of coat has Akhal-Teke/Turkcoman blood???

Grabing flame suit & heading for my fox hole.

i wondered when someone would come up with that! I think it goes back to thew technically expressed explanation above which mentions the type of fine hair and which in desert creatures would be logical. Alia

Dear Alia,

EXACTLY! Thank you for being a logical voice!

Gari

I think it must be a natural mechanism for reflecting light and heat from desert animals. It sounds wierd, but my gerbils' coats are sometimes irridescent too!

In fact though, to be evil, there ARE those who do, um, sort of suggest the Akhal-Teke might, possibly, ever so possibly, be an anscestor of the Arabian. To be extra evil they also say that the Byerly Turk, one of the arabian founding fathers of the thoroughbted, might ahve been An Akhal-Teke too.

I didn't say it! They did (Akhal-Teke fans).

The NSH filly we had a few years back had this metallic sheen and we marketed her with that in her ad. It was very interesting....She was by a pinto Saddlebred and out of an Egyptian/Crabbet/Polish rabicino mare.

Maybe the arabian horse with iridescence/metallic coat is one of the anquestors of the achal tekine horse?

Barbara,

Now that sounds right!

Above quote interested me so off I went on a research mission. On more than one site I read this:



What I can't find is WHY researchers now believe this and what is the evidence to back it up.
Anyone know?

There's lots of interesting info on Arabian sires within TBs on www.tbheritage.com

Think the AT people have a very vivid imagination.

Amongst the principle reasons the Blunts went into the desert was that they were looking for desert descendants of the Darly Arabian,:

" They did have one definite purpose in going to Syria, and that was to see if they could find any representatives of the strain from which the Darley Arabian had come over a hundred and fifty years before. The Darley had been in the male line, the most influential of the TB Foundation Sires.................the history of the Darley Arabian had been over the years something of an obsession with the Milbanke side of Lady Anne's family. The Milbankes had been famous breeders of the Thoroughbred in its early days."

P33, THE CRABBET ARABIAN STUD by Archer, Covey and Pearson-Note: there are several pages devoted to the Blunts, the Darley Arabian in the aforementioned CAS.

Point: The Milbankes were a very old family in the UK, members of the aristocracy and for hundreds of years breeders of great horses and amongst the founding breeders of theTB. To claim, albeit backhandedly, that the British breeders didn't know the breed of horses they were using to create TBs, is simply laughably ludicrous.

What does make abundant sense is that true old desert blood-whether a kangeroo rat or an Arabian horse....in the most Darwinian sense exhibited features that made them successful desert animals.

Just been reading up on Akhal Tekes again... Thought this topic interesting so I'm sorry to bring it up again. Now, the Byerly Turk was of no specified blood or breeding. According to historical 'fact' he was captured on the battlefield, hence the Turk bit I s'pose. The Godolphin is even more suspect parentage. Although he was reputed to belong to a good stable and of noble lineage, he was lost somewhere between travelling to France and being found by Edward Coke who sold him to the Earl of Godolphin. However, looking at pics of him supplied on the website that told me that stuff if he isn't an arabian then we've got our breeds mixed up. With a crest, face and tail carriage like that if he's not an arabian then I'll eat my keyboard.

Now the Byerly Turk on the other hand, now he does look a little suspect...

In all fairness to both breeds they DO come from Persia, around the Caspian Sea, and it is here that the Caspian Horse was found. This breed has sometimes developed a metallic coat AND does occasionally have the skeletal characteristics of the Arabian. As it is very much older than both perhaps its desdendents that went south evolved to be hardy, beautiful arabians, and those that went east evolved to be Akhal-Tekes.

Oh? How old is the Caspian supposed to be? How do you know he is older than the Arabian? What proof is available?
Horse bones have been found in the Abu Dhabi area that are roughly 50, ooo years old-definitely not Caspian origin.

My *Tuhotmos son Masada El Rabdan has metallic tones in the summer, but they are not gold, they are the iridescent of a mallard duck. Almost blue green. I have never seen it come across on a photo, but it is very apparent in the summer time. Several of his offspring share this trait.

Susan

My stallion Eagle Amir also has a coat like this, complete with dapples on a dark mahogany bay.. but with a distinct metallic look to his coat year round. I love it because I can leave him out 24/7 and he never sunbleaches but hose him off, brush him down, throw him on the trailer and let him air dry on the way to the show and he walks off the trailer looking like I've spent hours and hours on his coat He also has the very fine hair coat.. almost no winter coat even in cold cold weather and very thin skin. We also have a mare of mixed pedigree (purebred but Russian, Egyptian and polish bloodlines) that glistens like this despite having a winter coat or being dirty.. the resulting foal from these two is what I can only call a golden bay.. he is definitely bay but has a golden sheen to his bay coat that is really different looking and quite unique