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Horses With Weird Hair
Horses are generally considered to have hair, not fur. The vast majority of horses have short straight coats with long, straight hair in the mane and tail.
But there are some breeds of horse that have oddities about their hair. Two in particular stand out:
The Akhal-Teke Glow
The first odd breed is a very old one: The Akhal-Teke. The Akhal-Teke is a desert horse, bred to handle poor forage, temperature extremes, and sparse water.
They’re slender horses, and influenced the Thoroughbred, although they tend to have more stamina…in fact they are routinely exported from their homeland in Asia for use by elite endurance riders.
And they’re metallic.
Metallic.
Take a look at one of your own hairs under a magnifying glass and you’ll see an opaque core and a translucent sheath.
For some reason, Akhal-Teke hair doesn’t have the opaque core. This causes light to refract through the hair producing the distinctive shine. Their hair is also kind of scaly, which increases the refraction effect. Black Akhal-Tekes end up blue or purple and palomino and buckskins are just spectacular.
The gene occasionally shows up in Thoroughbreds, Arabians, and breeds influenced by the Thoroughbred. Perhaps the hair…