AMERICAN PAINT HORSE

You can make a splash in any discipline with a Paint.

- SAMANTHA JOHNSON

As you might guess from their name, American Paint Horses are American madethe descendants of the colorful Spanish horses that originally populated the United States. Their eye-catching coat patterns and muscular good looks were highly prized, and over time, those brightly marked horses (along with carefully selected American Quarter Horses and Thoroughbreds) became the foundation horses of the American Paint Horse breed we know and love today.

WHY WE LOVE PAINT HORSES 

And we do mean love-Paint Horses are one of the most popular breeds in the United States, as evidenced by the 40,000 to 50,000 foals registered with the American Paint Horse Association (APHA) each year. The APHA has registered over 1.1 million horses since it was founded in 1962-pretty impressive in just 60 years!

But there's even more to those gorgeous coat patterns than meets the eye. The patterns of white markings are generally divided into three groups: 

Tobiano: Faces tend to be minimally marked; stockings and body markings with white crossing the topline are common.

Overo: More extensive face markings are common and white body markings are "framed" by colored areas.

Tovero: A combination of both patterns. The overo term encompasses a number of white spotting patterns that include frame overo, sabino and splashed white.

When it comes to registration in the APHA, eligibility is based on the breeds of the parents (they must be registered with the APHA, the American Quarter Horse Association, or the Jockey Club), with a preference for white markings that meet certain requirements.