A palomino is a horse with a golden body coat and a white or flaxen mane and tail. It’s not a breed but a color classification, meaning palominos can appear across dozens of different breeds, from Quarter Horses to Morgans to Tennessee Walking Horses. The striking gold coloring results from a single genetic mechanism that dilutes an underlying chestnut coat.
Why Palomino Is a Color, Not a Breed
Unlike Arabians or Thoroughbreds, which are defined by pedigree and bloodline, palominos are grouped purely by appearance. A palomino Quarter Horse and a palomino Morgan share the same coat color but are otherwise unrelated in terms of breed characteristics, body type, and temperament. Many countries have dedicated palomino societies, such as the British Palomino Society and the Palomino Horse Breeders of America (PHBA), but these function as color registries rather than breed registries. To be registered, a horse must pass a visual inspection confirming its coloration falls within the society’s guidelines.
This distinction matters because two palomino parents don’t always produce a palomino foal. The genetics behind the color make it impossible to breed “true” the way you can with a recognized breed. That unpredictability is part of what makes the color so prized.
The Genetics Behind the Gold
Palomino coloring requires two ingredients: a chestnut base coat and a single copy of the cream dilution gene. The cream dilution is a mutation in a gene called SLC45A2 that disrupts the movement of pigment molecules into developing pigment-producing cells. With one copy of this mutation (and a chestnut foundation), the horse’s red pigment lightens to gold while the mane and tail lose most of their color, becoming white or very light.
A horse that inherits two copies of the cream gene instead of one becomes a cremello, a very pale, almost white horse with blue eyes and pink skin. That’s a completely different look from a palomino. So the golden color specifically depends on having just one copy, which is why breeding two palominos together gives roughly a 50% chance of a palomino foal, a 25% chance of a chestnut, and a 25% chance of a cremello.
What the Ideal Palomino Looks Like
The PHBA describes the ideal body coat as approximately the color of a United States gold coin. The mane and tail must be at least 75% white hair, with no more than 25% black, sorrel, chestnut, or off-colored hair in either. In practice, palominos range widely in shade depending on the season, diet, and individual genetics.
Skin color helps distinguish a true palomino from lookalike dilutions like champagne. Palominos typically have dark skin on the face, muzzle, and around the eyes. However, skin on less exposed areas (under the tail, inner thighs, the sheath in males) often shows incomplete pigmentation with a purplish tone. The key identifier is that the extremities tend toward dark pigmentation. Champagne horses, which can look similar at first glance, tend toward pink at the extremities, including pink teats in mares versus the dark teats seen on palomino mares.
Eye color in palominos is typically dark brown or amber, another point of contrast with cremellos (blue eyes) and champagnes (hazel or green eyes at maturity).
Shades of Palomino
Not every palomino is the classic bright gold coin color. The shade can range dramatically, and horsemen use informal terms to describe the spectrum. Light palominos are a pale, sandy gold that can be mistaken for cremello by an inexperienced eye. Golden palominos sit right at the ideal, with a rich, warm tone. Chocolate palominos have a deep, dark brown-gold coat that contrasts sharply with their light mane and tail, creating a look some describe as melted chocolate paired with spun gold.
Sooty palominos carry a modifier that deposits darker hairs across the topline and body, giving them a smudged or shaded appearance. Seasonal changes also play a role. Many palominos lighten considerably in winter and deepen in summer, so the same horse can look noticeably different throughout the year. Sun exposure, in particular, can bleach a palomino’s coat lighter, while a diet rich in certain proteins may deepen the gold tone.
Breeds Where Palomino Is Common
The cream dilution gene exists across a wide range of horse breeds, but palominos appear most frequently in a handful of them. Quarter Horses are probably the most recognized palomino carriers, and the color has long been popular in Western riding disciplines. American Saddlebreds, Tennessee Walking Horses, and Morgans also produce palominos regularly. The PHBA accepts horses from registries including the Quarter Horse, Paint, Appaloosa, Saddlebred, Morgan, Holsteiner, Arabian, various part-Arabian registries, Pinto, Thoroughbred, and several gaited breeds.
Some breeds almost never produce palominos. Standardbreds and Friesians, for example, lack the cream gene in their populations. Arabians can carry it, but palomino Arabians are relatively uncommon compared to their bay and grey counterparts.
Historical Significance
The golden coat color has appeared in horse populations for thousands of years, showing up in mythology, artwork, and historical records across multiple civilizations. Horses carrying the cream dilution arrived in North America with Spanish explorers in the early 16th century, reintroducing the species to a continent where horses had been absent since the end of the last ice age.
Organized efforts to track and promote palomino horses in the United States came much later. The PHBA was established in 1941, just a year after the American Quarter Horse Association. Neither organization initially kept detailed coat color records, and it took decades for formal color documentation to become standard practice. Today, the high frequency of cream dilution in American horse populations is considered distinctive compared to horse populations elsewhere in the world, likely reflecting the specific mix of Spanish bloodlines that founded the continent’s modern herds.