Information About Color Designation

Color designation of a horse carrying the genes that create the spotting patterns associated with the Knabstrupper can be challenging to identify and categorize.  To assist you in this task, here are some photos with descriptions. As you will see, some horses do not fit neatly into one category, but seem to have characteristics of more than one pattern.

Most breeders and horse owners are familiar with the underlying, or base color, of most horses.  Here we mean black, bay, chestnut, palomino, cremello, perlino, gray, etc. This will be true of Knabstruppers and Half-Knabstruppers as well, but in addition, a Knabstrupper can have on top of these base colors various and interesting patterns caused by the genes known as LP and PATN.  These are the same genes that produce the patterns seen in the Appaloosa horse, a very distant relative of the Knabstrupper. You can learn much more about these genes and how they work by following the excellent genetic research at https://www.appaloosaproject.co/

The main patterns associated with a Knabstrupper (and therefore a Half-Knabstrupper) are:

leopard spotted (all white body with dark spots all over);
      

near leopard (much like leopard but the white and spotting doesn't reach past the shoulders);
   
Note that the first near leopard horse also has a "rat tail" that is not unusual for this breed, but is considered undesirable.

blanket (dark body with white hindquarters that might or might not also have dark spots inside the white);

 

snowflake (dark horse with white lacy pattern on the hindquarters);
 
Note that the above horse may also have some frosting and has a pinto (overo) pattern as well.

frosted (dark body color that looks as though it is frosted all over with white, like frost on a car in the winter. This gene tends to appear sometimes years after birth, causing breeders to think they have one pattern only to find over time that the horse completely changes as you will see below);
 
The two horses above are the same horse! First as a foal and later as an adult.
 

few spotted (born almost entirely white with just a few other spots of color); and
 
 

solid (just a base color with none of the above patterns although they may have more common marking of white like a blaze, star, and stocking, etc).
   
 

In addition to the above patterns, a horse with Knabstrupper blood may well have other color characteristics such as:

mottling of the skin around the eyes, nose, mouth and/or genital regions;

stripped hooves; and/or

white sclera around the iris of the eyes (looking much like a human eye).

Now we add the complication of having one of the above patterns on top of the pinto genes (tobiano and overo)
   

As you can see, there is almost an infinite variety of color in this wonderful Half-Knabstrupper world!