Crosswordese.Com


The 143rd running of the Kentucky Derby takes place this weekend

Word of the Day – Weekend Edition

 


Home

Word of the Day

Archives

Clever Clue of the Month

The Cruciverbalist

Links

Daily Email







ROAN (rohn)

Horse having a brownish coat thickly sprinkled with white or gray
Common clues: Horse color; Horse of a different color; Reddish horse; Equine hue;
Mottled horse; Chestnut, for one
Crossword puzzle frequency: 4 times a year
Frequency in English language: 44060 / 86800
Video:
Pink Floyd


Roan is a type of coat color in horses (and, occasionally, in other animals, such as dogs and cattle) that is a mixture of white hairs with a base coat of another color.



A red roan horse


It gives the horse a lightened appearance, while the mane, tail and head remain the original color. Roan horses also tend to have dark lower limbs, and the top of the dark area will have a pointed or triangular appearance. It is a dominant gene, meaning that at least one parent must be a roan in order to pass the gene on (it does not "pop out" from two non-roan parents with roan lineage).


The true roan gene appears in some breeds more than others. Roans are found in these breeds: Quarter Horses, Saddlebreds, Tennessee Walking Horses, Connemara Ponies, Miniature horses, American Paint Horses, Welsh Ponies (though rarely, if ever, in Welsh Cobs), Shetland Ponies. There are only two roan Morgan horses known to be alive today, a gelding and an aged mare, so the color is probably at a dead end in that breed. The true roan gene does not appear in Arabians and Thoroughbreds; colored individuals in those breeds are carrying Rabicano or Sabino rather than the "true" roan gene.



This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Roan”