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Nico
Purebred Friesian
Nico is owned by Patrice Leonard of Rolling Hills estates, California. She sent
this webmaster hard copies of these photos along with explanations.
Click any
picture on this page to see a very large version. I mean, in many cases, a
HUGE version.
I will also include the complete texts of her email to me at this time.
I hope to edit this page later for brevity and clarity.
Are you still looking for people who have
light black Friesians?
I do not know what color my 11 year old
gelding was as a baby but I have had him for 2.5 years and he is Brown,
Brown, Brown!
He was kept in a
covered pipe corral when I bought him and he was a dark bay at that time.
I have made no real effort to keep him out of the sun. However I have body
clipped him the last two winters and have him blanketed day and night for
5 months. After body clipping he is almost buckskin (actually right after
clipping this fall he was kind of black for a couple of weeks and then his
fawn colored undercoat grew in). His face and legs are black and otherwise
he has never been what appears to be black. I am happy to know that what
looks like brown to me is actually "light black"-- it sounds better.
By the way he has impressive blood lines-
father is IDs 300, mother is a bendert daughter of preferent Hankse- Nora
ster. He is a 2nd premie Ster gelding.
I can live with brown but -- boy do a lot
of people comment.
Patrice
I only have
old fashioned film pictures and would be happy to mail you some if you
had a snail mail address. The blackest that Nico has ever been was
immediately after clipping this fall. over the next month it changed to
light tan with funny dapples. I see back spring hairs growing in now.
What I suspect is that he is a major fader- and fades with sun but even
more so with sweat. However the light tan this winter is in atypical
areas - upper leg and belly.
At the very
least I can say that this is no "boring" black horse. Every day the
color is a little different depending upon what is fading and what is
growing in!
Patrice
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| Note how it sounds, above, like the tan is where it would be on a
"seal brown" horse. I wonder if he's had an agouti test... |
| Typed note in envelope with photos: Dear Barbara,
Here are a bunch of Nico pictures. I have included:
- Unclipped midwinter pictures with him as a bay
- Summer pictures as a dark bay - in the darkest picture he lived in a
covered paddock.
- A series of pictures showing the color changes after body clipping
this winter. He was pretty black for about 2 weeks after body
clipping. He then developed dapples all over. He then
transitioned to a uniform dun color (with a dorsal strip). He is now
growing in a darker summer coat from the top down. He is a little
darker than in the pictures I have enclosed. His current color is
that of a tortoiseshell cat! During the winter he is blanketed day
and night,
His face is always dark almost black and his body, even at it's darkest
is never really black.
Enjoy
Patrice Leonard |
 
These three were paper clipped with this note:
This shows Nico's summer color. The standing picture was taken just
before I bought him -
He lived in a covered pipe corral and was darker than any time since
The bay pictures are typical midsummer color |
There was a piece of printer paper with these 3 pictures printed on it
along with this note: "This was the 1st winter I had Nico. It
rained almost daily & I did not clip him."
 |
| This next series of five photos were paper clipped with this
note from Patrice: "This is the color change this winter: I had body
clipped Nico mid Nov. Underneath the long red hair he was sleek black.
Within 2 weeks he had developed dapples and gradually became lighter until
he was a buckskin. Now a dark spring coat is coming in from the top
down & he is the color of a tortoiseshell cat!"
I'll put the notes I just noticed on the backs of the photos under each
one. The other photos, I see, don't have notes on their backs. |
"Just clipped"
|
"1 month after clipping" |
"2 months later" |
"4 months later" |
"Close up of new hair coming in from the top down" |
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