O. Yilmaz, M. Ertugrul

Abstract. Even though coloured horses are very rare in Turkey, there is a group of such horses in a small region in the east of the country. This study was undertaken to verify, by analyzing sex, coat colour, and morphological dimensions and comparing these with other Turkish horse breeds, whether this group of coloured horses is a crossbreed or a separate breed. In this study, 42 male and 35 female horses were divided into four age groups (1-3, 4-5, 6-8 and 9-18 years). The frequencies of body coat colour of the sampled horses were predominantly bay on white 55.2%, predominantly gray on white 17.2%, predominantly white on bay 8.6%, predominantly white on buckskin 8.6%, predominantly black on white 6.9%, and predominantly white on black 3.5%. Descriptive statistics gave the following means: withers height 134.5 cm, height at rump 135.3 cm, body length 138.2 cm, heart girth circumference 153.2 cm, chest depth 61.0 cm, chest width 39.4 cm, cannon circumference 17.6 cm, head length 54.6 cm and ear length 13.4 cm.