Silver Horses

What is Silver?
"Z" denotes the Silver, or Silver Dapples gene. Also known as "chocolate" or "taffy", Silver is one of the dilution genes, along with dun, Champagne & Creme. Silver not only dilutes black, but completely changes it, to a flat brown color (which may range from a creamy chocolate-with-milk color to a deep "Weimerainer" grey-brown), usually (but not necessarily) with dapples, and changes the mane and tail to white or very nearly white. The horse retains a dark, nearly black mask on its face, similar to Duns (especially Black Dun, or Grullo). Silver Blacks can easily be confused with Flaxen Chestnuts at times. You can make sure you have a Silver Black and not a Flaxen Chestnut by looking at the parents and the genes the foal is likly to have from them. You can also further test by breeding the horse in question. If Silver horses are produced by breeding to non-silver horses, then the horse in question is Silver.

Silver, or Silver Dapple, is neither silver nor necessarily dappled. It is entirely unrelated to dapple gray. It is a color gene that works to dilute Black pigment - creating lovely effects that include an extreme lightening of the mane and tail, and partial dilution of the body.

Silver dapple does not effect Red pigment, but it dilutes a black or bay coat to look red. Silver can be carried by a red horse (Chestnut), who can then pass it on to offspring.