Recently there have been a couple of interesting discussions around declaring color when photo showing models. In one case a judge claimed that a shower couldn’t declare a color on an OF plastic model other than what Breyer had declared; in another the judge insisted that a Fjord color designation had to use the Fjord registry specific terms (and curiously, the English translation of those terms, not the original Norwegian).
So here are my questions for discussion:
-
Should we require color next to breed and gender at all? And if so, how specific should that color be? (IE: “chestnut” or “flaxen chestnut sabino rabicano”?)
-
Does it matter to you if a shower chooses a different label for a model’s color than the manufacturer or original artist did?
-
Does it matter to you if the color matches the label that the registry would apply/require? (Chestnut vs sorrel, grulla vs grey dun or grå)
This is the one where I was really SMDH - where it was reported that a grulla Fjord was literally disqualified for using the term “grulla.” This is terrible judging. Whether or not “grulla” is your preferred term for the color, or the preferred term for the breed, it is an accurate and well understood term in models. (LOL, back to point 2, it’s the term Breyer used. So you can see these expectations are all in tension with each other.) Similarly, if I were judging a grulla quarter horse and a Norwegian shower had listed it as grå, I’d be fine with understanding that this is a correct term in a different language.
We know that registries have often been antiquated in the color terms they allow, not necessarily including all the possible modifiers and often registering horses as colors that aren’t accurate. True roan isn’t in Thoroughbreds, and some horses with extensive white are in registries that have no way to list those modifiers. Chestnut and sorrel are synonyms and I don’t care if you want to show me your sorrel Thoroughbred even if that’s not a term typically used in that breed.
The only way that color and breed should interact when judging is when the horse has a color simply not found in that breed. The bay tobiano pinto shown as a purebred Friesian is a no. But not because you called him a skewbald. 😉