Is this horse considered a medicine hat paint?

Question

We raised this mare and I was wondering if she was a real medicine hat paint or just a look-a-like. Here's a pic, she's the one on the left: http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=27xfdoj&s=3

The spot doesn't go very far down her neck on either side.

Answer 1

No because they only have color over their ears

Answer 2

I cant get the pic to come up but if you go to the APHA site there are all the coat names and pictures  .  I bet you can find her coat name there.

Answer 3

no, i beive a medicine hat has no colour on its body apart from over its ears.

Answer 4

I don't think she is. Most medicine hats have a "cap" of color over there ears and pole and minimal color elsewhere. She's a gorgeous mare by the way.

Answer 5

no, im sorry, she is a tobiano, medicine hats have the bonnet covering their ears and poll, occasionally a 'sheild' on their chest, and that is it, sorry

Answer 6

Hi there - as a Paint horse person I can help with your question.  But first of all, you need to know that APHA does not officially define what a "medicine hat" is.  They have all sorts of official markings such as bonnet, star, snip, and so forth, and they have very clear definitions of tobiano, overo and tovero, but you will not find an explaination of "medicine hat" anywhere on their website or their APHA rule book.

So you see why you are getting a wide variety of answers.

First, lets consider what most Paint people would use to define "medicine hat".  It refers to a horse which is almost solid white with a small amount of color, normally only found on its ears, top of the forehead and forelock.  It was supposed to be considered lucky by the Native Americians, (they believed you could not be injured on that color of horse in battle) hence the name that sounds rather interesting.

Your mare has much, much too much color to be a medicine hat, in my opinion.  Even if she did not have all the spots on her body she carries too much dark on her face.  A medicine hat would not have the color around her eyes.

Let's look at what color your horse probably is, going by the one photo I've seen.  She apparently is a bay.  By the way, the term "tri colored" is also not recognized by APHA, its a slang word people use to define horses that have three tones so a bay, buckskin or dun could qualify for people's explaination of tri-colored.  Tobiano is totally a different thing altogether and has nothing to do with whether they are tri-colored or not - you can have black tobianos, roan tobianos, etc.  You mare's patches look very much like a tobiano as they are rounded and regular.  But her face is not marked like a normal tobiano.  I would say she has bonnet markings, or a bald face, meaning she has a large white area on her head.  This is very typical in overos, but not in tobianos, who are normally marked on the face like a regular horse, so they often have stars, snips, blazes, etc, but not bald faces.   Because your mare has some characteristics of both overo (her bonnet face) and then tobiano (her round regular patches) I would suspect she would be registered by APHA as a tovero.  Look at her breeding - does she have tobiano genetics on one side of the family, and then overo genetics on the other side?  That would be my guess.

She is an attractive mare, but not a medicine hat according to any definition I've heard.  I would guess she is a bay tovero with a bald face.  Do some looking on APHA's website, or the brand new June 2008 Paint Horse Journal issue has a column on markings.

Answer 7

Yes, she is a Medicine Hat, and a very pretty one at that.

Answer 8

Mm, I don't believe so.

Answer 9

Hello,

Typically medicine hat paints look like:

http://images.search.yahoo.com/images/vi...

http://images.search.yahoo.com/images/vi...

But the three colors tend to make this a tobiano or tri colored paint.

BEAUTIFUL paints in you photos...  We have 7 paints!  and 4 solids!