Knights - and heroes generally (e.g. the Lone Ranger) - are stereotypically associated these days with white horses. But was that really a thing, back in the days of actual knights (and other horse-riding “heroes”)?
I would have thought that if it were really a big deal, that more of them would have been bred (horses have been subject ot extensive breeding for all sorts of other characteristics). And yet you very rarely see them IRL.
Breeding for the purest white would have caused other genetic problems: unavoidable in the aristocracy but no point in doing the same disservice to their armies.
Grey was close enough, and it made the horse troops easier to monitor on muddy, smoky battlefields
White horses have been a symbol of greatness and goodness for a long time. IIRC in Rome there was a god (Helios?) who rode a chariot with four white horses, and sometimes a general rode in their Triumph in the same style. But then if they were called equi candidi it’s not clear if they were white or just bright.
and then there are the four horsemen of the apocalypse.
The first, the conquerer with bow and crown, rides a white horse.
And then there is this one.
But it does keep sync with the flames nearby, so it seems to be a lens reflection only .
You don’t breed for this, but I include it as a genetic malady with a white coat link.
Over here, you’re more likely to see one at a South Asian (Hindu or Pakistani) wedding. Or I think the Royal Mews has a team for special occasion carriage processions.
Either is a pretty impressive spectacle.
Genetically, there isn’t such thing as an albino horse – no pigment in the skin, blue eyes, white coat. There are colors that approach pure white.
Most common is the graying gene. Foals are born any color, and over time lose pigment in their hair. By middle age most horses with this gene look white, but their skin and eyes are still dark. The “dappled gray” is simply a younger gray horse in transition to their ultimate whiteness. The gray gene is ancient in Europe and the Middle East – probably the majority of Arabians, which breed had an enormous influence on the horses of the privileged classes of Europe, are gray.
There are other rarer colors which can look almost white, including horses homozygous for the “cream” gene, which lightens the base coat in utero, and some spotting patterns in extreme expression (like the pinto or skewbald white patterns including overo, cited above).
White horses are striking, and like many another striking-to-humans coloration of horses and other animals, there is often a down side, genetically, to them. Gray horses for example, commonly develop melanomas, though they are usually not serious.
One last overly pedantic fact about white horses – the famous white feral horses of the Camargue marshes (genetically gray) are self-selected for this coloration because white is less attractive to the horrendous biting flies there. Dark colored horses died or were too weak to reproduce, apparently.
For more information than you could want about horse coloring I have a pdf you can download, the info for which was cribbed from a much larger book. To quote the section on white horses,
There are a number of mechanisims for producing a white horse, but most common is the sabino-white. This will produce a white horse with pink skin and dark eyes. Grays can also lighten to white but will have dark skin. A white appaloosa is a few-spot leopard. Some can also turn out to be tobiano or spashed white, but these will generally have minor remnants of the base color that remain for life, especially around the ears or through the mane and tail. As mentioned above, homozygous overo-whites will not survive due to bowel malformations. Double dilution cremellos will give an off-white, more properly termed cream but even at the lightest, not a true white Finally, the Dominant White gene will produce white with pink skin, sometimes with dark speckles around the genitals. They are born white and stay white for life, but are always heterozygous Homozygous dominant white foals are not viable and are reabsorbed.
One thing you did not want to be is the one guy on a white horse.
I’d like to add two comments. 1. Its only some Hindus (predominantly northern India) that have this tradition. 2. The tradition is for the groom to ride a Mare and not a horse.
A long time ago in India, a white horse would be allowed to wander, shadowed by mounted warriors. If the horse strayed into another kingdom it meant war.
No more an irrational casus belli than some others that could be named.
No, it was not.
Horses now are largely a large ‘pet’ or ‘companion animal’, not really used as a working animal. So that gives horse breeders the luxury of trying to breed for such minor characteristics like coat color. When horses were a working animal, a major part of the knight’s equipage, they had to be effective as a war horse, and coat color was an unimportant concern.
Anyway, there are hardly any true white horses. Just other colors diluted into various shades of grey.
All horses have a base color of either black or red. Various other factors affect the presentation of that color, so blacks can appear as black, brown, bay, or buckskin (and grey). Red horses usually show as chestnut, sorrel, dun, palomino or cream (and grey). Black horses can be a dusty grey, while red horses become rose grey.
There are only 3 ways to have an actual white horse (with pink skin & brown eyes).
Horses have only the 2 base colors; other mammal’s can have 3 base colors, like calico cats or tri-color dogs.
A mare is an adult female horse.
