whiteTBs

White Thoroughbreds

Yes there really are white thoroughbreds, although extremely
rare. Most have been born in the US, and a few have raced,
as seen in these pictures, and generally used to produce coloured horses.
Many TBs have white markings on their legs and faces and some on their bellies, but these are all white, not albinos as they have dark eyes. An albino has no coloured pigment.
The only registered white TB stallion is a horse called Arctic
White born in 1999 by a coloured TB stallion called Airdrie Apache, a chestnut with lots of white spashes over his body. His sire, Naevus is a chestnut horse with a small white patch on his body. His dam was Not Quite White, a white TB mare.
Not Quite White was by the stallion Northjet, who had a lot of white on the legs and face as did his sire Northfields, a son of Northern Dancer, who often sired horses with plenty of white on their legs and faces like The Minstrel, a flashy chestnut. Some early imported eastern horses where coloured, and as the white colour is resessive can skip generations.

There are no true breeding black TBs, unlike breeds like Friesians, Dales or Fell ponies, where all are black, as with all grey breeds like Lippizaners, these are born black and go lighter as they get older. If there is any brown in the coat then the colour is a brown of dark bay. Some foals are born bay or chestnut but turn grey, usually within their first year, when they are often registered as roan, sometime the grey hairs disappear sometimes some grey will remain. With white the skin is pink so cannot change colour. It is very rare for a horse to be registered as black, usually listed as dark bay or brown. If it's parents are non-greys then the offspring cannot be classed as black.

Blue and white is where the dark skin is covered in grey hair making it much darker in colour and the rest is pink skin so showing as the whiter areas on the body. To produce the grey colour at least one parent has to be grey or true black. Some ponies look as though they are grey until you take a closer look and see that it has pink and black areas of skin. The chances of a white or coloured TB doing well on the racetrack is down to it's breeding and conformation as with any TB, the whiteness make no difference to it's ability.