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Palomino is a dilution of chestnut by one copy of the c gene (Ccee). Palominos feature a gold, yellow, or tan body, and a white or off-white mane and tail.
Palomino is a popular color among horsemen and lay people alike. It has spawned the creation of a few color registries, chiefly the Palomino Horse Breeders of America. Since palomino requires a heterozygous arrangement of alleles at the C locus (the homozygous dominant CC will be chestnut, and the homozygous recessive cc will be cremello), palominos cannot breed true -- in other words, crossing a palomino with a palomino will only give you a 50% chance of a palomino foal, with a 25% chance of a chestnut and 25% chance of a cremello. The inheritance section shows a demonstration of this.
Palomino comes in many shades.
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The horses in the photos below are a shade known as sooty palomino. They have dark brown or black hairs mixed in with their coats, and in the case of the horse at left, the dark hairs have mixed in with the mane and tail, too, giving it a greyish look. (The buddy of the palomino foal at right is a red dun, of course.)
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Dunalino
The two photos below are of a filly whose color is popularly called "dunalino." A dunalino horse has inherited the genes for red dun and palomino; their genotype is CcD-ee. Since different genes cause these two colors, it is possible for a horse to inherit both types. This filly does have primitive markings, although you can't see them in these pictures, and her legs are a darker shade than her body color, as befits her red dun genes. But her body is a gold color and her mane and tail are white, as befits a palomino. Any palomino with primitive markings can be called a dunalino, but breed registries will call them palominos.
The photo at left shows the filly in her whitish winter coat. At right, she has shed out to her summer coat.
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Two more dunalinos. You can see their dorsal stripes.
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As I mentioned, there are a few palomino associations. The biggest one, I believe, is the Palomino Horse Breeders of America. Palomino is in no way a breed; it is a color. It can't even be described as a breed, because it won't breed true, unlike dun. (Buckskin requires a heterozygous Cc too, namely A-CcE-, so it cannot breed true either.) Dun can breed true because it is a complete dominant; the heterozygote and the homozygote have the same phenotype.
Some breeds, notably the Arabian, have no dilution genes in their gene pool. They cannot be palomino, buckskin, or dun. However, some light flaxen chestnuts are able to be registered as palominos with the PHBA, since they register their horses only on visual inspection; if the horse "looks palomino," he can be registered as such. Some Arabs, in fact, are registered with PHBA, even though they are never palomino -- the Arabian registry, which is a breed registry, registers them as chestnuts.
The horse at left is a flaxen chestnut -- what I call a sorrel. It is not a palomino. Why? Because it's red. Palominos are gold, yellow, or tan. However, given the white mane and tail, this horse could probably be registered with PHBA. Personally, I think that's a pretty loose definition of what a palomino is.
See the chestnuts and sorrels page for more discussion on ersatz palominos.
Palomino or sorrel?
