Horse eye color

There is a great range of variation in the eye colour of horses. An occational horse will have two different coloured eyes.

The normal eye is dark brown with a brown scelra, iris, and pupil.

Hazel and amber eyes; These are lighter versions of the normal brown eye, found more commonly in the diluted coat colors palomino, buckskin, Grulla and smokey Blacks.

Glass eye; Cremello/Perlino eyes has on off-white/pale blue iris, with blue pupil, known as the glass eye. They can be blue pigment or even green, teal and amber.

Yellow eyes; The dilute eye when not amber or hazel is yellow or honey colored.

Usually the distinhuishing feature of the dilute black, Grulla & Smokey Black.

Apparently, blue eyes in horses is often related to the horse having the

Dilution color modifying gene. Dilution-type genes, dun and creme, Champagne and also the paint pattern characteristics.

Genes are passed from the parents to the child; the Dilution type gene is a dominant

"Dominant means that if it is present, it will manifest fully

Dilution means that it doesn't change the color of the horse, but lightens

the skin color...making the color "diluted". Dilution also affects eye color.

There FOUR known dilution genes in horses. They are Creme (that makes Palomino, Buckskin, etc.); Dun; Champaine and Silver Dapple.

Dilutions are currently found primarily in Tennessee Walking Horses,

Missouri Foxtrotters, American Saddlebreds and Quarter Horses - also in

crosses and related breeds (Appaloosa, Paint, Part-Arabians, etc.).

Teal eye; The eye is distinguished from the other by it's uniformity in color. The Champagne gene seems to function in many ways aside from simply diluting a horse's coat color ... it also affects skin and eye color. Because the Champagne gene is a simple dominant, your horse MUST have at least one Champagne parent in order to be a Champagne!

Champagnes are born with bright pink skin and bright blue eyes that take a long time to change, but usually become hazel or amber by adulthood.

Paint eye; Wall eye, This eye is very light "ice" blue, pale blue. Close examination of the eye reveals the that dark blue appears to 'bleed'

raggedly from the center of the iris, the eye can has dark blue spots also. The wall eye is most commonly seen in paint (broken pattern) colored horses. Where it is seen occasional in solid colored horses it appears to be recessive. Wall eyes may be an indicator for some incomplete paint pattern, sabiano, overo, tovero and tobiano. The blue eye is considered to be different than the wall eye, appearing a grey/blue colour.

It may not be associated with excessive white, and may rarely occur in minimal white and totally solid horses.

(Wall eyes in AQHA horse; Careful examination of pedigree must be obtained as to prove to nonexistence of a paint ancestor)

A wall eye is unrelated to the dilution and does not indicate the presence of a dilution, nor the likely hood of the horse producing a dilution.

Multicolored eye; half wall eye, this eye is brown and blue, can be half and half or brown with blue spots, oe blue with brown spots. The multicored eye appears to be the same as the wall eye.