Horse Facial Markings

Although there are several basic facial markings on horses, each marking will be unique in shape to each horse. Like snowflakes, no two are precisely the same. This is useful for horse owners because it provides a means of accurate identification. If you need to fill out registration papers, or documents like Coggins Tests, facial markings will be part of the identifying markings recorded for your horse.

In "The Black Stallion," the horse is a solid black Arabian. The role in the movie was filled by a horse named Cass Ole, a black Arabian stallion with a white star on his face. In some scenes, if you watch carefully, you can see the shadow of Cass Ole's white facial and leg markings under his stage "make-up."

Star

A star is a white spot on a horse's forehead, between the eyes. A faint star may only appear as a few white hairs, or the star can be large enough it covers the whole forehead area. Stars can be very symmetrical in shape, like spots or diamonds, or they may appear as irregular splotches.

Some stars extend down the bridge of the nose without connecting to any other facial markings. On gray horses, the star may be very obvious when the horse is young and disappear into the graying hair coat as the horse ages. The star may blend into the coat color, but the skin beneath the coat will be lighter in color. 

Snip

A snip is a patch of white on the horse's nose. It may be a small spot between the nostrils, or it may extend over the whole nose. A snip might be connected to a blaze or stripe. Or, a horse may have a star and a snip.

Strip

A strip is a band of white that extends in a more or less even stripe down the bridge of the nose. A strip may connect to a star at the top and extend to the white markings on the horse's nose. Or they may be broken so there are three separate facial markings on the face, a star, strip and snip. The strip is quite narrow, only an inch or two wide and stays on top of the nasal bone. A strip may also be called a stripe.