Champagnes: Horses of a Different Color
by Kristin Berkery

[Featured in the January/February 2005 issue of Horsing Around magazine.]

Photos of champagne horses
When I was a kid and my family would go on roadtrips across the U.S., I remember my parents playing the song "The Tennessee Stud" performed by Johnny Cash. I can still clearly remember the lyrics:

The Tennessee stud was long and lean
The color of the sun and his eyes were green
He had the nerve and he had the blood
There never was a horse like the Tennessee stud

At the time, I was completely puzzled by this description... I'd never seen a horse with green eyes in my life, and I couldn't imagine what a yellow horse with green eyes would look like. It actually sounded a little scary.

Fast-forward to a few years ago... When I heard the song again in the Quentin Tarantino movie "Jackie Brown," I had a flashback to my childhood. But this time, the meaning of the song suddenly hit me. The Tennessee Stud was probably a gold champagne Tennessee Walker with hazel eyes. Now it made sense!

I first learned about champagne horses by accident when I read about Khalvin Khlein KPM, an amber champagne three-quarter Arabian grandson of Khemosabi. Khalvin's dam was a champagne Half-Arabian mare who probably got her color from the Saddlebred side of her pedigree. (She also had Quarter Horse breeding.) I became interested in equine color genetics around that time, so I did more research into this unique gene.

Champagne is a dominant modifier gene like cream or dun, which means that when a horse inherits it, the gene affects or dilutes the basecoat color. For example, when the cream gene is applied to chestnut, a palomino results. When champagne is applied to chestnut, a gold champagne is produced, which can look deceptively like palomino but has some distinct differences. A gold champagne is a horse with a yellow-gold or orange-gold body color (often with a pronounced metallic sheen), blond or white mane and tail, light-colored eyes, and purplish-pink skin. (There are some gold champagnes with manes and tails the same color as their bodies – they’re referred to as “self-gold” champagnes.) Throughout history, gold champagne horses were often called “pumpkin-skinned” or “light-skinned” palominos.

An amber champagne horse results from the champagne gene applied to bay. The horse may appear to be buckskin at first glance, but then you’ll notice the mane, tail, and legs are actually a chocolate color, the gold body color has a metallic sheen, the eyes are light, and the skin is a purplish-pink.

Classic champagne is produced when champagne is applied to black. Some people describe it as “Weimaraner-like” because it’s a monochrome color, others have called it “lilac dun,” and still others confuse it with grulla (dun + black). The horse has a muted brownish body color with a metallic sheen, and the legs may be a darker shade of the body color. The eyes are light and the skin is a purplish-pink.

Some other newly discovered shades of champagne include grey champagne and sable champagne. When grey and champagne combine, the genes are considered co-dominant so the horse never completely greys out. At a distance, grey champagnes’ coats appear white or very light cream with a metallic sheen (sometimes accompanied by a brown-tinted mane and tail), but upon closer inspection you see a large amount of champagne-colored fleabites. They also tend to have very heavy, almost black, mottling or freckling on their pink skin.

Sable champagnes are brown horses with the champagne gene applied. The color may be mistaken for classic champagne until genetic testing shows a horse is positive for agouti. (The presence of agouti indicates the horse is not black, so it could not be classic champagne.)

There are even more shades of champagne created when the champagne gene and cream gene are applied to a basecoat color. For instance, gold cream champagne results when a champagne gene and a cream gene combine on a chestnut basecoat. Amber cream champagne is produced when champagne and cream are applied to bay. Classic cream champagne results from champagne and cream applied to black. As you can imagine, horses with these two different dilution genes are generally very light in color, but they can have brown-tinted manes, tails, and legs. As with all horses that carry the champagne gene, cream champagnes have light eyes and purplish-pink skin.

As if this gene wasn’t complicated enough, champagnes may undergo color changes as they age. Their pinkish skin may darken to a purple color and become very mottled or freckled. Their eyes, which could be bright blue at birth, could change to hazel or amber in adulthood, and sometimes go through all three colors during the horse’s lifetime.