This post first appeared on August 19, 2011
For the most part the upcoming book is about current breeds, but there were a few extinct ones that I couldn’t resist including because they were interesting in terms of color. One of those was the Royal Creams of Hanover. They are interesting because they were a remnant of the horses bred in the pre-stud book era, and also because their coloring remains a mystery. Were they double-diluted creams, champagnes or pearls – or something else entirely? I compiled as many accounts (and images) as I could and made some guesses in the book, but in fact no one really knows what they were. I suppose that is part of their allure for color researchers!

Recently I found this photograph of the horses in a Library of Congress archive. It was shot in London in June of 1911, so this would have been just shortly before the Crown Equerry determined that the remaining horses should be disbanded. The last of the Creams were dispersed in 1921, just ten years after the photo was taken. It was too late to include it in the section on the Creams, but I can share it here.