Can horses see color?

Lady seems to prefer her dark blue saddle pad to her light blue saddle pad. Could it be she just likes dark blue better than light?

(She happens to look beautiful in both!) Come to think of it, she looks great in every color!

The pads are identical except for the color. We've examined them closely. There are no differences between the two pads. Here's a cool article about horse vision.

As it turns out, horses can see some color, though not all colors. They may see bright colors better. According to this article, they see grass as "a wishy-washy greenish-grey."

The article also explains why horses sometimes get nervous in windy weather. (I've experienced that more than once!) It's because as pray animals they're always watching for moving things. When it's windy, everything is moving!

Last year I went to a show and learned that one of the training level horses entered in the show was blind in one eye. He completed the stadium course beautifully. I was so impressed by his bravery, knowing that he must have been taking jumps he really couldn't see very well. He must have really trusted his rider.

Another horse was owned by an older guy. They were so cute together. They also showed training, and afterwards he told us that he had rescued his horse a couple of years earlier. When he found the horse she was almost dead. Her previous owners had nearly starved her to death. What an amazing story.

And, before I forget, thank you Amy, for sending me this article!

Comments

[Doe]

They have preferences in *flooring* colours, of all things; I found an article about that somewhere. Apparently horses prefer red, green, brown or grey.

[Maddy]

Wow, that's pretty interesting! Thanks for the extra information!

[Aunt Amy]

How interesting. I wish they made glasses or something that we could put on to see the way they do.

[Maddy]

Hey, that's a cool idea! I'd love to see what they see, they could make glasses like that for dogs and cats too, that would be interesting!

[Bitten]

Horses must see color. I feed my two very gentle horses cantaloupe and watermelon rinds over the backyard fence often. Kids even feed them.I was wearing a cantaloupe colored blouse and reached over the fence to pet one of the horses the other day when he grabbed my breast with his teeth, picked me up and shook me, and threw me on the ground. I think he must have mistaken my blouse for cantaloupe. I felt like telling him, "Boy, them ain't cantaloupes."