What My Blog is All About, The Horse Breed of the Day, and the Horse Color of the Day

Horses and Writing Mainly

So, yeah. All you cowgirls and cowboys out there can enjoy this, and all those young writers. I'm open to y'all! I know I kind of said this on my Welcome post, but there's more......

So a layout of my blogging schedule: 

Each day, maybe an update of my life, maybe a short funny story, or a joke. Each day, I will have the "Horse Breed of the Day" and the "Horse Color of the Day." In that way, people who don't know much about horses can have fun learning about a new breed each day. I may also introduce a famous racehorse or a horse like Mister Ed. 

I also will have contests (yah!).

If you have a published work, I'd LOVE to know about it!!! I love horse books, and Christian other stuff, like Christian fantasy, Christian mysteries, and Christian fictional history. Seriously, if you wrote a book and published it, send the name to me and I'd love to look into it! Going to the hospital for chemotherapy can be very boring (three days in a hospital bed feeling GROSS), and I've read almost all my books. I need more, and to read and enjoy one of YOUR works of writing would thrill me!!! 

Christmas day, there will be a Chapter One of a Christmas story, introducing my buddy and best character, Katelyn Reed, who is like me, but in 1900, who lives on a horse ranch that breeds Quarter Horses and has lots of siblings (I've always wanted six siblings, a few older than I, and brothers). I practically have her living my dream life, LOL. 

But today, there is a Breyer Horse Contest I am putting on! 
My email: 13lovespalominos@gmail.com

Explaining The Model Horse Contest: 
All you have to do is take a picture of your model horse or horses under a Christmas tree, in front of lights, standing in snow, or maybe with Santa Clause. Anything that includes Christmas somehow. Then you will send the best photo shoot to the email above, and I will post it with all the other photos. Contest is from today to New Years. On New Years Day, I will announce the winner (the one with the most votes) who will get either a horse drawing step-by-step book, a Susan K. Marlow book, a Jeanne Birdsall book, a journal, or a horse activity book; winners choice. If you don't have a model, you can always use a stuffed animal horse ;) I've also added that you can send a picture of your real horse, if you own one!!!

The Horse Breed of the Day!!! 

It is (drum roll please) the APPALOOSA!! This fashionable, spotted horse is a great stock horse, pleasure horse, and racehorse!

Appaloosa colors are gorgeous patterns of white on a dark color or dark color on a white, or the Appaloosa can be solid. Appaloosa patterns are: blanket (a dark horse with a white spotted pattern over rump and sometimes down back legs), leopard (a white horse with black or brown egg-shaped spots all over body), snowflake (a dark horse with white flecks on body, sometimes only concentrated on rump), marble (a horse with a roan base, with spots like snowflake or blanket), and mottled (a leopard-patterned horse with almost no leopard spots, just mottled ones).

The Appaloosas eyes are different from most horses. Unlike ours, horses eyes don't show the whites of the eye. Instead, the colored part takes up the whole eye. Appaloosas, however, shows the white part! Cool, right?

History of Appaloosas: 
They were the horses of the Indians back in the 1700s and 1800s. They weren't really notified as "Appaloosas" back then, just the unique spotted horses of the Native Americans. In the late 1800s, this beautiful spotted breed nearly disappeared, along with their fellow humans. In the 1900s, the Appaloosa breed made a comeback, and in fact became racehorses!

Now Appaloosas are being bred not only for pleasure riding and ranching, these horses are being bred for their own special racing! Now I know that wasn't a very good history lesson, but that's the best I can do ;)

The Horse Color of the Day!!! 

It is the gorgeous color SORREL!!! The coat of this color is usual a red, a golden-red, or a brown-red with a yellow, flaxen, or blond (a rusty, yellow-gold) mane and tail. Up where my grandmother lives, there is a sorrel mule with a blond mane and tail named Red. He was so cute!!! I loved to stroke his long, red ears. Sorrel is popular in most horses, especially in Haflingers and Suffolk Punches, as these two breeds can ONLY be sorrel and chestnut!! 

Sorrel is a shade of chestnut, interestingly. And actually, there are lots of different thoughts on the color sorrel. Some people say that sorrel is only common in Thoroughbreds, while chestnut is the only color on other horses. Some people say that sorrel and chestnut are the same color. 

I say that (from reading lots of books, and a newly, very good and correct encyclopedia published in 2018) sorrel and chestnut are two different colors, and Thoroughbreds can be either. 

But, people have different ideas of this color, and I won't pressure them to think what I think. And I won't judge!

~Izzy West

P.S. This blog is a work in progress. There will be more, don't worry.