Palomino Horse: Genetics, Shades and Breeding Odds
By Breedio team
In short
A palomino horse is a chestnut carrying one copy of the cream gene. Learn the shades, how to tell it from lookalike coats, and the exact odds of each cross.
A palomino horse is a chestnut (e/e) that carries exactly one copy of the cream gene. That single dilution turns the red body gold and the mane and tail pale. It is also the reason a palomino can never be guaranteed to produce a palomino. This article is part of our horse coat colours guide.
What is a palomino horse?
Palomino is not a breed. It is a coat colour produced by two genes working together:
- Extension (E/e): the horse is e/e, so it cannot make black pigment and its base coat is chestnut (red).
- Cream (Cr): the horse carries one copy of the cream dilution (Cr/n), which lightens red pigment to gold.
Cream is incompletely dominant, so the number of copies changes the result. One copy on a chestnut gives a palomino. Two copies give a cremello, with pink skin and blue eyes (see our article on cremello, perlino and double cream). The same single copy on a bay gives a buckskin, covered in our buckskin article.
The Agouti gene has no visible effect on a palomino, because Agouti only restricts black pigment and a chestnut has none to restrict. Silver also acts only on black pigment, so it does not change a palomino either.
Which shades of palomino exist?
Palominos vary a lot, from almost cream to deep copper-gold. Breeders usually describe three broad shades. The variation comes from the underlying chestnut (light or dark red, sooty or not) and from modifiers, not from a different cream genotype.
| Shade | Body | Mane and tail | Typical origin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Light palomino | Pale gold to cream-gold | White or ivory | Light chestnut base |
| Golden palomino | Bright, even gold | White or flaxen | Medium chestnut base |
| Chocolate or sooty palomino | Darker gold with brownish or dappled shading | Cream to light, sometimes with darker hairs | Dark or sooty chestnut base |
A very pale palomino can be mistaken for a cremello from a distance. Look at the skin and eyes: a palomino keeps dark skin and dark eyes, while a cremello has pink skin and blue eyes.
How do you tell a palomino from a chestnut with a flaxen mane?
Some chestnuts, notably many draught and pony types, have a pale flaxen mane and tail without any dilution gene. They are easy to confuse with a palomino at first glance. Check these points:
- Body colour. A flaxen chestnut stays a true red, liver or copper shade. A palomino body is gold, a shade no chestnut produces.
- Mane and tail. A palomino mane is typically white or ivory. A flaxen chestnut mane is usually straw or blond and often darker at the roots or mixed with red hairs.
- Foal coat. Palomino foals are often a pale cream-gold at birth. A flaxen chestnut foal is born red.
- Breeding results. A flaxen chestnut crossed with a cremello gives palomino foals only if it carries no cream itself. Two flaxen chestnuts always give chestnuts.
When the colour is doubtful, a DNA cream test settles it. Palomino carries one copy, the flaxen chestnut none.
How do you tell a palomino from a gold champagne?
Gold champagne is a different dilution (the Champagne gene) acting on a chestnut base. The body can look very similar to a palomino, and the two are often confused. The difference is in the skin and eyes.
| Feature | Palomino | Gold champagne | Flaxen chestnut |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gene involved | One cream copy on e/e | Champagne on e/e | None |
| Body | Gold, often even | Gold to tan, can look metallic | Red to liver |
| Mane and tail | White to ivory | Usually similar to body or slightly lighter | Flaxen, straw or blond |
| Skin | Dark | Pinkish and freckled, especially around muzzle and eyes | Dark |
| Eyes | Dark brown | Amber or hazel, often blue-green in foals | Dark brown |
Champagne lightens both coat and skin, which gives the freckled pinkish skin and amber eyes. Cream on a single copy leaves skin and eyes dark. If you see mottled pink skin on a gold horse, think champagne before palomino. A DNA test for Cream and Champagne separates the two, and the University of Kentucky's Gluck Equine Research Center and the Texas A&M Animal Genetics Laboratory both offer these colour tests.
Which crosses produce a palomino?
The figures below are Mendelian odds for each foal, assuming both parents are chestnut-based (e/e), so the foal is always red-based. If a parent is bay or black-based, the foal can also be buckskin or smoky black, and the odds change.
| Cross | Palomino | Chestnut | Cremello |
|---|---|---|---|
| Palomino x chestnut (no cream) | 50% | 50% | 0% |
| Palomino x palomino | 50% | 25% | 25% |
| Palomino x cremello | 50% | 0% | 50% |
| Cremello x chestnut (no cream) | 100% | 0% | 0% |
| Cremello x cremello | 0% | 0% | 100% |
| Chestnut x chestnut (no cream) | 0% | 100% | 0% |
Two points matter in practice:
- Cremello x chestnut is the only palomino cross with a guaranteed result. A cremello carries two cream copies, so it always passes one on.
- Palomino x chestnut is the most common palomino mating. Each foal has a 50% chance of inheriting the cream copy, and odds do not carry over from one foal to the next. Several chestnut foals in a row do not make the next one more likely to be palomino.
If you want to avoid a cremello, do not mate two palominos. A cremello is healthy, with no known lethal effect, but it has a very pale coat, pink skin and blue eyes, and it is more sensitive to strong sun.
Why can a palomino not breed true?
Breeding true means a mating that always gives the same colour as the parents. A palomino cannot do this because it is heterozygous for cream (Cr/n). Each parent gives only one of its two alleles to the foal, so a palomino passes either cream or no cream with equal chance.
When two palominos are mated, the four possible combinations are equally likely:
- Cream from the sire and cream from the dam: cremello (25%)
- Cream from the sire and no cream from the dam: palomino (25%)
- No cream from the sire and cream from the dam: palomino (25%)
- No cream from either: chestnut (25%)
The two palomino combinations add up to 50%. This is why a palomino x palomino mating gives a mix of three colours, and why breeders who want only palominos use a cremello on a chestnut mare. Chestnut and cremello breed true, since each carries two identical alleles.
One caution for breeders: palomino is not found in every breed. Purebred Arabians, for example, do not carry dilution genes, so palomino is not a purebred Arabian colour. A palomino-looking animal registered as a purebred Arabian is worth a closer look at its parentage and papers.
What if the parents are not chestnut?
The table above only applies to e/e parents. A bay or black horse can hide a red gene (E/e), so it can still produce a chestnut or a palomino foal. Two clues help:
- Parents' coats. A bay or black horse with a chestnut parent or a chestnut foal is E/e.
- Grandparents' coats. Their coats narrow the possible genotypes of a horse whose own coat does not show every gene.
A coat does not show every gene, so a calculator gives a range of possibilities, and a DNA test confirms the exact genotype. This matters for the cream gene too: a buckskin or a smoky black looks different from a palomino, but all three carry the same cream copy.
What colour is recorded on the papers?
In France, the coat on the horse's papers is recorded by the SIRE/IFCE. The wording used for a gold, pale-maned horse depends on the studbook and the coat vocabulary it follows, so check how your stud book names the colour before declaring a foal. If a foal's colour changes at its first coat change, which is common in palominos, update the description with your registry rather than leaving the birth colour in place.
How do you predict your foal's colour?
Planning a palomino foal comes down to three facts: the base colour of each parent, whether each carries cream, and whether one of them could be hiding a red allele. Breedio's free foal coat colour calculator takes the coats of the mare and the stallion, optionally their parents' coats and DNA test results, and returns the foal's possible adult coats with their odds. It covers Extension, Agouti, Cream, Champagne, Silver, Dun, Grey, Roan, Tobiano and Frame overo, and it warns about the lethal white (OLWS) risk.
Once your mare is in foal, follow her pregnancy with the Gestation Tracker, which tracks each mare through the roughly 340 days of gestation and sends notifications at key milestones. You can find every free tool on the Breedio tools page.
Key takeaways
- A palomino is a chestnut (e/e) with one copy of the cream gene.
- Shades run from light and golden to chocolate or sooty palomino, depending on the chestnut base.
- Skin and eyes separate a palomino (dark) from a gold champagne (freckled pink skin, amber eyes).
- Palomino x chestnut gives 50% palomino. Cremello x chestnut gives 100% palomino. Palomino x palomino gives 50% palomino, 25% chestnut and 25% cremello.
- A palomino cannot breed true because it passes cream to only half of its foals.
- Test the cream gene by DNA when a coat is doubtful, and use the calculator to see your odds before the mating.
