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What is your take on dapples?

4K views 10 replies 8 participants last post by  3rdTimestheCharm 
#1 ·
Recently, another boarder and I were discussing dapples, and the different theories behind why horses get them. That got me curious about what other people think about why horses get dapples.

From my personal experience, I feel that they are a result of good health because when I got my gelding, he had pretty severe gastric ulcers. After he was treated for them, he started to get dapples, and he since then, he gets them from spring-early fall every year, and every year they become more prominent.

So, what is your opinion on dapples? Health related? Genetics? Something else?
 
#4 ·
I would agree with all of the above: good health, but that not all horses in good health show dapples, for whatever reason.

We have 3 horses:
An appy gelding who is solid white due to greying out. Good luck seeing dapples there, we never have. LOL
He stays on the healthy proper-skinny side as he is older and is low man in the pecking order.

My appy-quarterhorse mare gets fat on air. She is a buttermilk buckskin and shows full body beautiful dapples year round. This time of year is really neat as she also gets really shady like she is sooty, but it is just the coat change affecting the colors as it comes in.

Our 3rd is a BLM wild caught bay gelding mustang. He is also a very, very good air fern.
He tends towards a really nice red bay color. I saw *very* faint dappling on him once for a week or so, then never again. But I did wonder if my brain imagined it, considering they went away- dapples don't really go away, I didn't think, unless bad health comes into play.

They all 3 get the same hay and the same multi-vitamin on top of a bit of wetted alfalfa pellets.
Even when the 2 chunkies are of equal chunk, the paler buckskin always shows dapples while the bay never does.

And then greys are known for dappling as they process through their shades of grey, right? We bought our boy once he was solid white, so I am not positive on that.
 
#7 ·
Good grooming.... that doesn't happen here, ever lol. Still have the one in great dapples.
I refuse to groom a horse that lives outside 24/7 and is just going to go get dirty and be a horse. I scratch them plenty to get their itchy spots, and they get brushed when ridden, but again, only for blanket placing cleanliness and to get the itchy spots. :)

I do bet all that brushing distributes the oils really well though. :)
 
#10 ·
I would have said health, oils, grooming and genetics/coat color. Of the five horses I have owned:

-China, a gray, had a mirror shine to her coat, but never had a single dapple.

-Djinn, a darkish bay, was covered in dapples, even though he had periodic issues with his immune system, and was a "carrier" of ascarids no matter what we did.

Pony Macaroni, an adopted Shetland-cross type girl, seemed built for dapples, but never had any. She was a darkish gold/black/brown with a blond mane and tail, no teeth, and she ate 8 coffee cans of grain a day to maintain her skeletal figure.

Ahab, a black Percheron, was a dull black which faded to rusty brown every year, until I really hit the coat supplements: then he stayed jet black year round with tons of dapples. He was very satisfying to brush, too; he tended to stay very clean.

Nemo, a flaxen chestnut... I'm working on it. Last year, I think I may have spotted one or two toward the end of summer... I think with more work, they will come, but he is the mud-lovingist, least easy to groom horse I've ever owned. And he gets fat on air, so I can't really put the oil or flax to him. I think @boots is right; grooming is going to be the key to Nemo ever getting dapples.
 
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