Rose Grey Horses

Hey everyone, I am going to be hopefully purchasing a mare at a local horse farm, and I was told she was grey, she looks to me, after doing some digging; that she is a "Rose Grey" QH, I can't really find any information as to how this occurs, She does have a dun factor, with dorsal stripe (it is predominant, but don't have a photo of THAT just yet) I am just curious who else owns a Rose Grey, or knows about them! Lets see those beauties!!!

Rose gray is just a term. It's just a stage in graying out where they are half gray and half whatever color they were before (usually "rose grays" are bay before, which gives them sort of a pinky color).

She will eventually gray out entirely. The dorsal stripe might just be caused by the graying process, also. Do you know what color she was born?

Thanks for the info! She I believe was born a chestnut, but not entirely sure, that's just from what I was told by a few breeders that know the horse, I have to ask the owner for photos! Lol

If she was born chestnut, then the dorsal stripe is being caused by graying rather than dun. Gray makes things go wonky sometimes. :)

Yeah, makes sense!!! Lol I will double check today when I go out to bale, and post more updates! Lol Thanks again

I always think of grey genes as two layers:)
A chesnut has two brown layers.
A rose grey has a grey layer and a brown layer.
A grey has two grey layers.

A normal grey will always produce a grey. A rose grey has a 50/50 chance, like they are half and half chesnut/grey:)
I have a rose grey filly, she was born a cute dark chestnut
Then I have a mare who WAS a rose grey, and is now just a normal fleabitten grey. That's where she got her name Rosie:)

Mango, that's not right. A gray horse won't always produce a gray foal. It depends on zygosity. Grays can be heterozygous or homozygous. Homozygous will always produce a gray foal. Heterozygous will have a 50% chance of producing a gray foal.

"Rose" gray is just a stage in the graying process. Same as dapple gray.

Gray horses can be born any color also.

Like Po said, rose gray is just a descriptor for the stage of graying and the original color of the horse. I rode a filly once, many years ago, that was literally purple. I have no idea what her birth color was, but she came to us as a 3 or 4 year old and looked just as purple as you can imagine. Of course, I was all of about 12 or 13 at the time so my only thought was "oooh, pretty purple horsey", but I know now that it was just a strange combination of her original color and the stage of graying she was in at the time.

This was her about a year after her "purple" phase...

I love the dapples on your horse!

My foal is a rose gray (base color bay). He's only 14 months though, so he's basically bay with white sprinkles.

Anyhow, I can't wait to see him in a another 2 or 3 years. He's going to be so pretty. I hope he dapples! I've owned two other grays but they were already in their teens when I got them so I missed the color change. I'm excited to see my foal change (can you tell, lol).

My 3 yo.