Making a complete dictionary of the horse would be very long, but we can give you the main elements of vocabulary to allow you to express yourself as a real horse expert!
The vocabulary of the horse world in alphabetical order
Action: the way the horse moves. The action is said to be extravagant, i.e., raised when the forelegs are lifted high. In the Arabian, the action, low, light, is said to be floating.
Albino: congenital absence of pigment in the skin and hair: pink skin, white hair, and often blue eyes. True albinos are rare. In the United States, albino horses are bred, descendants of the stallion Old King, of Arabian father and Morgan’s mother, born in 1906.
Amble: artificial, low, soft, two-beat, lateral gait.
Arched: said of a neck with a convex upper edge.
AQPS: other than Thoroughbred. This is the name given to racehorses that are neither Thoroughbreds nor Arabians.
Balzan magpie: head often white. White limbs. No white patch on the back. White belly. Contour of the patches clear, regular.
Bay: fawn hair, black manes, black skin, dark eyes. Black extremities except white markings. The brown bay is very close to black.
Beauty: qualifies the perfect adaptation of an organ to its function, or of the animal to the service for which it is intended. Beauty indicates good structure, maximum aptitude for a given function, quality, energy, and perfection. A well-proportioned horse is beautiful. It has distinction, it combines elegance with strength. A short and light head is an absolute beauty for a luxury horse.
Biped: association of two limbs. The diagonal biped is formed by a front leg and an opposite rear leg.
Black: black hair, black mane, black skin, dark eyes. White markings are possible.
Black Pangaré: black hair with tan hair on the nostrils, flanks, stifles, elbows, belly, ars, inside of the thighs, etc. Black manes, black skin and dark eyes.
Blood: in exterior, synonymous with energy. Signifies itself by the elegance of the forms, by the vivacity of the movements, by the energy of the paces. Blood horses (Arabian, Thoroughbred, Anglo-Arabian, French Trotter, French Saddle) are long, slender, and particularly suited to galloping and trotting.
Bottom: Capacity of resistance of a horse, acquired by training and result of blood and condition.
Bracelet: white markings going all the way around the limb but not down to the crown.
Breed: constituted by a group of individuals of the same species, possessing a certain number of common morphological and physiological characteristics that can be transmitted from one generation to the next. A horse is purebred if it is descended from two parents belonging to this breed and if it presents the common characteristics of the breed. A new breed is recognized when its Studbook or Herd Book is created.
Bréviligne: stocky body, deep, short limbs. Built in strength, it is the model of the draft horse like the Ardennais.
Brindle: spotted coat with black stripes.
Busted: said of the head with a convex profile.
Camus: said of the head whose profile is concave.
Cap de Maure or de More: grey, roan or Isabella coat with black head.
Cape: unique white area extending at least on the croup, at most from the croup to the withers. Exceptionally, it can extend over the neck. Its contours are very variable. One speaks about spotted cape if it presents spots, of uniform cape in the contrary case.
Carrossier: powerful, elegant carriage horse, intermediate type between the saddle horse and the draft horse. It was formerly used to pull carriages, heavy cars like the diligences.
Champagne: pink skin with small black spots.
Chest (to have of the): says itself of a horse whose chest is broad, and the chest is ample, deep.
Chestnut: irregular, rough horny production, located, in the horse, on the internal face of the forearm and the hock.
Chestnut: fawn hair, fawn manes, light skin but not pink, dark eyes. Burned chestnut: skin and manes color of roasted coffee, black skin, dark eyes.
Chocolate: chocolate (black) hair and mane, dark skin, dark eyes.
Close to the blood: horse with a considerable proportion of Purebred or Arabian blood.
Coat: all the hairs and hairs considered especially from the point of view of the color. The foal presents, at its birth, a dress of color often different from that of the future coat. Thus, the gray is born very dark or black, the black is born reddish, the white is often gray, and the roan is born bay.
Cob: a stocky horse with short limbs and a rounded body that can carry a heavy rider or be hitched to a light carriage.
Cold Blood: draft horse or heavy horse.
Cream: cream-colored hair, white to grayish manes. Pink skin. Light eyes.
Crucial stripe: dark stripe extending transversely over the withers and the shoulders.
Dappled: grey coat, with a network of dark and light areas, in the shape of apples in which the center is lighter than the outline.
Deep chest: of a good length between the point of the shoulder and the last rib.
Drinking in its white: lips and tip of the nose totally or largely invaded by laird.
Dry: said of a hard and chiseled limb; said of a fine head, with flat cheeks, whose thin skin and sparse connective tissue model all the subcutaneous anatomical parts very well. It is the attribute of the blood horse, the fine horse
Dun: (wolf’s coat), coat of Isabelle base with black hairs or black hairs at their extremities.
Fanon: long hairs covering the dewclaw (back side of the fetlock), or even the whole lower part of the limbs. Common in draft horses, reduced or absent in the so-called noble breeds.
Firebrand: Fawn reflections or bright red spots on a dark coat.
Flocked: Small tufts of white hair (like snowflakes) distributed throughout the coat.
Foot: outside, means the hoof with its contents.
Forehand: in front of the rider, including the head, the neck, the withers, and the front legs.
Forelock: abundant tuft of fine hair, implanted on the top of the nape of the neck and the top of the forehead.
Gaits: diverse ways of moving the horse. We distinguish the so-called natural gaits: walk, trot, ordinary canter, and the artificial gaits such as the raised walk, the amble, the racing canter. The gaits are said to be diagonal or lateral when the limbs move in diagonal or lateral bipeds.
Ganache: An even region based on the lower jaw.
Grey: mixed hair (white and colored). Mixed manes (white and colored). Black skin. Dark eyes.
Half-blood: horse of which one of the sires is of the Purebred (English) or Arabian breed.
Heavy horse: powerful, massive, energetic, which allows it to be used in the draft.
Hindquarters: the area of the body behind the rider, including the croup and hindquarters.
Hot Blood: blood horse used as a saddle horse.
Hunter: powerful horse, robust, good galloper, and good jumper, intended for hunting with hounds. It is often the result of a cross between a Thoroughbred and a draft horse.
Isabelle: yellow hair, black manes, black skin, dark eyes. Black extremities except white markings.
Jack: male donkey, which can be used as a stallion for the mare or the donkey.
Leopard: uniform white (pink skin) with clearly visible patches of color (black skin) of varying shapes and sizes, extending over the entire body. Part of the spotted coat.
Light horse: having a conformation and an action which makes them suitable for the saddle.
Marmorated: spotted coat invaded by white hairs (coat appearing almost white) except at the joints where the basic coat appears.
Milky coffee: café-au-lait horsehair and mane, light skin but not pink, dark eyes.
Mouse: ash-grey hair, ash-grey to black mane, black skin, dark eyes. Black extremities out of white markings.
Moutonnée: said of a head whose muzzle presents a convex profile.
Oblique shoulder: i.e., inclined (ideally, on average, between 45 and 55° on the horizon).
Palomino: light fawn hair golden. Silver-white manes, lighter than the hair. Black or grey skin. Dark eyes (not blue). For the British Palomino Society, the coat must have the color of a freshly minted gold coin.
Piebald: presence of white patches in any coat base and/or at least one barnacle extending beyond the elbow or stifle. The extent and the shape of the white patches are very variable. According to the location of these white patches, we distinguish several types of magpies.
Pie Overo: mostly white head. Limbs often colored. No white patch crossing the topline. Large horizontal axis of the white patches. Contour of the white patch’s irregular, blurred, bordered. White patches starting from the belly and extending to the flanks and neck.
Pie Tovero: almost white horse. There remain some colored patches on the flanks, the stifles, and the top of the head.
Pie Sabino: presence of white patches in the basic coat. Mostly white head. White patches on the back, the belly, and the legs. Contours of the spots very jagged, jagged, irregular.
Pinking: depigmentation of the skin which has a pink color at the level of the nostrils, lips, and chin.
Plumb: direction of the limbs under the trunk during rest.
Prepotency: ability of a horse to transmit its characteristics to its descendants in a regular way.
Principle: white mark in crown making the complete turn of the member.
Roan: stable mixture of white hairs in a bay coat.
Rubican: presence of white hairs in the dresses which do not comprise normally some (bay, black, chestnut, Isabelle, mouse).
Saddle: white hair in a chestnut coat.
Sharp croup or mule croup: whose lateral parts slope like the slopes of a roof, with a very prominent median ridge.
Sock: white marking of the lower part of a limb and making the complete turn of this one.
Spike: set of diverging or converging hairs around a more or less apparent point.
Splinter: said of a broad, ample chest.
Spotted: coat with the presence of white patches: spotting (piebald or spotted type).
Spotted: said of dresses presenting an alternation of white and colored patches. The transitions between the two types of patches can be clear or mixed.
Studbook: “book of the stud farm”, register bearing the names, the genealogies of the horses of the same breed. It is also called “stud book”.
Size: is taken at the height at the top of the withers, the horse standing plumb on a horizontal ground. While the average height of horses is between 1.50 and 1.80 m, ponies should not exceed 1.48 m in France. Miniature horses are less than 86 cm tall. The Toy horse, a cross between mini-Shetland and Falabella descendants, is between 50 and 80 cm tall.
Spotting: small red spots on a light coat.
Swallowed croup: strongly inclined.
Thoroughbred: horse whose parents belong for generations to the same breed. The English Thoroughbred is usually referred to as a Purebred. The Arabian is also a Thoroughbred.
Tobiano magpie: mostly colored head. Limbs often white. White patch crossing the back. Large axis of the white patches vertical. Contours of the patches clear, rounded, regular.
Toughness: the result of blood and condition. A well-tempered limb indicates a good constitution and a very great resistance.
Trace: white mark not making the complete turn of the limb.
Trait: qualifies a “heavy” horse, of massive form, stocky, with strong limbs, with voluminous muscular masses, intended for traction. The heaviest horses are also called “big slow drafts”, the medium ones are “fast drafts», and the lightest ones are “light drafts”. The term “heavy horses” replaces the term “draft horses”.
Type: horse not belonging to a fixed, recognized breed, but fulfilling a particular function, serving a specific purpose. The Cob, the Hack, the Hunter are types
Morphological types:
- Bréviligne type: stocky horse, with shortened lines, with the musculature more developed in thickness than in length. This horse is more apt to show strength than speed. This is the type of heavy horse or draft horse.
- Long type: slender horse, with long lines, ogival chest, with open joint angles of the legs. It is the type of the saddle horse and more particularly of the racehorse.
- Medioligne type: horse with average proportions, well balanced. It can be, for example, the type of the hunting horse.
Variety: subdivision of the breed, set of individuals that a selection, for example, has had the effect of endowing with distinctive characters from the rest of the animals of the breed.
Washed: discoloration of the coat, as if it had been rubbed off by washing.
White: white hair, white mane, pink skin. Dark eyes. No white markings.
Withers: follows the upper edge of the neck, precedes the back, and surmounts the shoulders. It is a culminating region from which the size of the horse is measured. It is well out in the light horse, drowned in the muscular masses in the heavy horse.
Zain: complete absence of white hair in a coat.
Zebras: black or brown stripes that circle the body, but more often the limbs. They are best seen on Isabella and mouse horses, and especially on donkeys and mules.
