5 Beautiful White Horse Breeds (True & Fake White Identification)

With their striking appearance, white horses are undeniably beautiful creatures. They’re the stuff of fairy tales, and to some people, they can evoke images of magical stories of princesses, wizards and unicorns.

White-colored horses are not that uncommon, but true white horses are rare. But what’s the difference? And which breeds can be white? In this post, we answer questions like these and more as we give you a list of 12 white horse breeds.

What Does “White” Really Mean?

Before we talk about the different breeds that can produce white horses, we need to take a step back and consider the question of what “white” actually means when referring to horses.

The answer to this might seem obvious – after all, a white horse is simply a horse with a white coat, right? Well, no. It’s not quite as simple as that.

True white horses are very rare, but horses that appear white – or more or less white – are far more common.

Horses that can properly be called white – as opposed to horses that merely appear white – have unpigmented pink skin and white hair. They are born this way and don’t change color as they age.

That said, some white horses may be born with some pigmentation, which they lose completely as they grow older.

Pink skin and white hair are the result of the lack of pigment cells – called melanocytes – in the skin, which is caused by genetic factors.

This means we can say that true white horses are genetically white while other horses may display a white or nearly white coat without genetically being a true white horse.

So What’s Not White?