This post first appeared on October 29, 2012
I wanted to get pictures of one of the new horses at our barn, Dutch, to use for a post on sooty patterns. Dutch was interesting because he has the very dark forehand that some sooty buckskins get. I also thought artists that read the blog might find the abrupt transition between his body color and the black front legs interesting.

I had only seen Dutch at a distance, but I had gotten the impression he had somewhat paler-than-usual eyes. Light brown eyes are not uncommon in buckskins or palominos, so that would not have been unexpected. When I got close enough to take this picture, the reflection from his eyes looked off. (All the images in this post are larger than they appear, and since the details are small, I highly recommend clicking them to see the larger version.) Instead of looking pale brown, his eyes looked like the reflective gleam was in the wrong place. That is more noticeable in this face shot.

Over the years I have learned that odd reflections in the eyes sometimes mean the horse has a blue segment, and sure enough, that was the case with Dutch. Although he has no white markings at all, both of his eyes have flecks of blue. The largest one is located close to the bottom of his right eye, and is what is giving the odd reflection.

As can be seen in that photo, he has a number of blue flecks in that eye. His iris also has irregular patches of golden brown and darker brown, giving the whole eye a marbled look. Although it was more visible in brighter light, even without the light directly hitting the eye the blue areas could be seen.

His left eye had smaller flecks of blue that were much harder to capture on film. (This is the image that would most benefit from clicking, since the flecks are so small.)

He would be an interesting horse to test for splash white. So far a couple of individuals without white markings of any kind have tested heterozygous classic splash white (SW1). Perhaps Dutch carries SW1, too. It is also possible that there is some other yet-unknown cause for the blue sections in his eyes.