Horse Coloring Pages

A child who loves horses usually wants a horse that looks like a horse. These free printable horse coloring pages start there: a horse galloping across open country with dust kicked up behind it, another rearing on a hilltop, a herd of wild horses splashing through a mountain stream, and two portraits close enough to see the eye, a braided mane and a white blaze. A spotted Appaloosa grazes among wildflowers, a Paint horse stands by a red barn, and a draft horse with feathered hooves pulls a wooden cart down a lane.

The rest of the collection is life around horses. A girl brushes her pony by the fence, a boy has his first riding lesson on a lead rope, two girls braid ribbons into a mane before a show, and a farrier holds up a horseshoe while the horse lifts its hoof to watch. There is show jumping, dressage in a top hat, a cowboy riding through a desert canyon, a racehorse in full stride, and three horses looking out over their stall doors at the end of the day.

Which horse pages for which age?

The Quick to color button keeps the sheets with the fewest small areas and puts the easiest at the front.

• A horse face with a white blaze
• A horse rearing on a hilltop
• A horse galloping across the prairie

Many of the realistic horses sit at this end, because a horse on a plain background is one large outline with room inside it. That makes them good for young children, and just as good for older ones who want to shade a coat properly. The middle of the collection is the stable and the pony pages, which suit children from about five: the horse looking out of its stall with a mouse in the straw, the boy feeding an apple over the fence, the girl brushing her pony, the child splashing through a puddle.

Horse coloring pages for adults

Lots of detail keeps the other end, where tack, fences, flowers and stable boards fill the page with small areas. The densest open the band.

• Children braiding a horse mane with ribbons
• Three horses at their stall doors
• A show jumper clearing a fence

The show jumper over a striped fence with its flower boxes, the dressage rider in the arena and the farrier beside his anvil all take an evening. The realistic horses from the quick end are worth a second look too: with fewer areas to fill, the time goes into shading the muscles of the neck and the shine on the coat, which is where sharp colored pencils earn their price (the colored pencil guide compares sets).

What color is a real horse?

Horse colors have names, and choosing one before starting makes a page look right. A bay has a brown body with a black mane, tail and lower legs, called the points. A chestnut, or sorrel, is reddish brown all over with no black points, and its mane can be the same color or lighter. A palomino is golden with a cream or white mane, a buckskin is tan with black points, and a dun is tan with a dark stripe running along its back. Gray horses are usually born dark and turn lighter every year, and a roan has white hairs mixed through a colored coat, which a light layer of white or pale gray over the main color imitates well.

Some horses in this collection tell you what they are. The Appaloosa has a spotted blanket over its hindquarters, so pick a base color and dot the spots darker. The Paint horse has large patches, usually white with brown or black. The horse face with a white blaze wants that blaze left as bare paper. Whatever the coat, color the mane, tail and lower legs last, and hooves in gray or dark brown.

Riding, stables and horse shows

For a riding school, a pony club or a horse-themed birthday, the stable pages tell the story of a day with horses: grooming, the lesson on the lead rope, braiding the mane, the farrier, the show with its rosettes, and the horses back in their stalls. Print them as a set and let each child take the step they like best. A finished page pinned up by a stall door or in the tack room lasts all season in a plastic sleeve.

Coat colors, and the names they have

Horse colors have precise names, and a child who learns four of them will use them for the rest of their life.

Bay is a brown body with a black mane, tail and lower legs. It is the commonest horse color and the one most people color wrong, because the black points are what make it bay rather than just brown.

Chestnut is reddish all over, including the mane and tail, which may be lighter than the body but never black.

Gray horses are born dark and lighten every year until they are almost white; a "white" horse is nearly always a gray. Black is rare and rarely truly black, usually fading brown in sunlight.

Then the patterns: piebald is black and white, skewbald is any other color and white, and an appaloosa carries spots, often a white blanket over the hindquarters.

Face and leg markings have names too. A blaze is a broad white stripe down the face, a star is a patch on the forehead, a snip sits between the nostrils, and white on the lower leg is a sock if it is short and a stocking if it reaches the knee.

For the coat itself: a horse's hair is short and lies flat, so it shades smoothly, but the mane and tail are long and need strokes that follow the fall, not scribble.

Horse, pony or unicorn?

This collection is real horses and ponies. A foal staying close to its mother appears in the spring coloring pages, talking ponies with their own adventures are in the My Little Pony pages, and anything with a horn belongs to the unicorn coloring pages.

Press Add to pack under any drawing to set it aside, then print everything you picked as one PDF. The pack keeps your picks as you move between collections, so a few animal coloring pages can join the same print.

These print A4. Use 100 % scale on A4 paper and "fit to page" on US Letter, with draft mode off, since toner saving thins the outline to gray. The printing guide has the rest. Every sheet is a free printable PDF at 300 dpi.