Sable in equine color terminology describes a coat pattern in which the body is pale — cream, light gold, or dun — while the points (mane, tail, lower legs, and sometimes the face) are black or very dark. The color takes its name from the heraldic and artistic term for black, which appears in discussions of coat coloring across several domesticated species. In horses, the visual result resembles a pale buckskin or dun with unusually dark or black points rather than the typical brown or dark bay points those base colors produce.
The exact genetic mechanism producing what is described as “sable” in horses depends on the specific base-color alleles involved. A horse carrying the cream dilution gene on a black base produces a smoky black, not sable; a bay with the dun dilution and very dark points approaches the sable description. The term is not formally standardized in major equine color registries the way buckskin, dun, or palomino are, and it is encountered more often in informal descriptions and some breed standards than in registry documentation.
When evaluating a horse described as sable in a sales listing or pedigree, confirm the specific genetics if registration or breeding decisions depend on the designation. DNA color testing can verify the underlying alleles and resolve ambiguity between visually similar patterns such as smoky black, dun, and sable. The equine coat color genetics guide covers the allele interactions that produce these visually similar dilute patterns.
Further Reading: The heraldic and color origin of the term is explained in the Wikipedia entry on sable as a color designation. The Wikipedia article on buckskin horse coloring covers the cream dilution allele interactions that produce the visually similar pale-body-dark-points patterns described under the sable label.