White (horse)

White horses are born white and stay white throughout their lives. White horses may have brown, blue, or hazel eyes. "True white" horses, especially those that carry one of the dominant white (W) genes, are rare. Most horses that are commonly referred to as "white" are actually "gray" horses whose hair coats are completely white.

True white horses

White horses have unpigmented skin and a white hair coat. Many white horses have dark eyes, though some have blue eyes. In contrast to gray horses which are born with pigmented skin they keep for life and pigmented hair that lightens to white with age, truly white horses are born with white hair and mostly pink, unpigmented skin. Some white horses are born with partial pigmentation in their skin and hair, which may or may not be retained as they mature, but when a white horse lightens, both skin and hair lose pigmentation. In contrast, grays retain skin pigment and only the hair becomes white.

White colorings, whether white markings, white patterns or dominant white are collectively known as depigmentation phenotypes, and are all caused by areas of skin that lack pigment cells (melanocytes). Depigmentation phenotypes have various genetic causes, and those that have been studied usually map to the EDNRB and KIT genes. However, much about the genetics behind various all-white depigmentation phenotypes are still unknown.

Uffington White Horse

Coordinates: 51°34′39″N 1°34′00″W / 51.57750°N 1.56667°W / 51.57750; -1.56667

The Uffington White Horse is a highly stylised prehistoric hill figure, 110 m long (374 feet), formed from deep trenches filled with crushed white chalk. The figure is situated on the upper slopes of White Horse Hill in the English civil parish of Uffington (in the county of Oxfordshire, historically Berkshire), some 8 km (5 mi) south of the town of Faringdon and a similar distance west of the town of Wantage; or 2.5 km south of Uffington. The hill forms a part of the scarp of the Berkshire Downs and overlooks the Vale of White Horse to the north. Best views of the figure are obtained from the air, or from directly across the Vale, particularly around the villages of Great Coxwell, Longcot and Fernham. The site is owned and managed by the National Trust and is a Scheduled Ancient Monument.The Guardian stated in 2003 that "for more than 3,000 years, the Uffington White Horse has been jealously guarded as a masterpiece of minimalist art," and also inspired the creation of other white horse hill figures.

White Horse

Whitehorse or White Horse may refer to:

White equines

Mythology and symbolism

Coat colors

People

Places

Cities, villages, towns

White

White is an achromatic color, literally a "color without hue", that is a mixture of the frequencies of all the colors of the visible spectrum. It is one of the most common colors in nature, the color of sunlight, snow, milk, chalk, limestone and other common minerals. In many cultures white represents or signifies purity, innocence, and light, and is the symbolic opposite of black, or darkness. According to surveys in Europe and the United States, white is the color most often associated with perfection, the good, honesty, cleanliness, the beginning, the new, neutrality, and exactitude.

In ancient Egypt and ancient Rome, priestesses wore white as a symbol of purity, and Romans wore a white toga as a symbol of citizenship. In the Middle Ages and Renaissance a white unicorn symbolized chastity, and a white lamb sacrifice and purity; the widows of kings dressed in white rather than black as the color of mourning. It sometimes symbolizes royalty; it was the color of the French kings (black being the color of the queens) and of the monarchist movement after the French Revolution as well as of the movement called the White Russians (not to be confounded with Belarus, literally "White Russia") who fought the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War (1917-1922). Greek and Roman temples were faced with white marble, and beginning in the 18th century, with the advent of neoclassical architecture, white became the most common color of new churches, capitols and other government buildings, especially in the United States of America. It was also widely used in 20th century modern architecture as a symbol of modernity, simplicity and strength.

Horse

The horse (Equus ferus caballus) is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus. It is an odd-toed ungulate mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature, Hyracotherium, into the large, single-toed animal of today. Humans began to domesticate horses around 4000 BC, and their domestication is believed to have been widespread by 3000 BC. Horses in the subspecies caballus are domesticated, although some domesticated populations live in the wild as feral horses. These feral populations are not true wild horses, as this term is used to describe horses that have never been domesticated, such as the endangered Przewalski's horse, a separate subspecies, and the only remaining true wild horse. There is an extensive, specialized vocabulary used to describe equine-related concepts, covering everything from anatomy to life stages, size, colors, markings, breeds, locomotion, and behavior.

Horses' anatomy enables them to make use of speed to escape predators and they have a well-developed sense of balance and a strong fight-or-flight response. Related to this need to flee from predators in the wild is an unusual trait: horses are able to sleep both standing up and lying down. Female horses, called mares, carry their young for approximately 11 months, and a young horse, called a foal, can stand and run shortly following birth. Most domesticated horses begin training under saddle or in harness between the ages of two and four. They reach full adult development by age five, and have an average lifespan of between 25 and 30 years.