CHAMPAGNE Champagne is a one of the DILUTION GENES similar Creme, Dun & Silver Dapples. It lightens the coat as well as skin and eye color.
   Here are a few a good websites devoted to Champagne horses:
http://www.champagnehorses.net
Champagne's Key Characteristics: pumpkin/pinkish skin that is 'freckled' or mottled with dark purplish spots. bronze/gold cast to the hair coat; Eyes that are light blue at birth but change to very light amber, greenish, bluish, or even a 'normal' brown shade foal coat color that starts darker and sheds to a lighter color as they mature. Both Gold and Amber expressions of the Champagne gene often fade to look identical to Creme (palomino & buckskin) with age.
  
Photos: "Tarnished Champagne" owned by Katy Bowen-Brazell
Until there is a DNA test for Champagne, the most accurate way to identify a Champagne horse is to have known it from birth. A Champagne horse must have at least one Champagne parent. Their foal coats are usually darker in color than their adult coats - the opposite of most other colors. Champagnes are born with bright pink skin and bright blue eyes that take a long time to change, but usually become hazel or amber by adulthood.* As adults, the skin may still retain its pumpkin-with-purple freckling, but other colors can mimic this, and some champagnes darken to fairly ordinary colored skin in adulthood.
Golden Champagne quarter horse at Back Country Horsemen Rendezvous, Madera, CA 2002 Sometimes a horse looks like it might be a champagne but is really something else. A particularly confusing situation is when horses carry multiple types of dilutions, such as creme and silver dapples or dun and silver dapples. http://www.champagnehorses.net/Pseudo-Champagnes/pseudo-champagnes.htm for photos and more discussion of champagne and champagne look-alikes Click here for a more complete explanation of Champagne or Here
or Original Champagne Horses Website Champagne looks a lot like Palomino, Buckskin and Cremello, but differs in some definite ways. TYPES OF CHAMPAGNE:| BASE COLOR | with CHAMPAGNE GENE | | | BLACK |
CLASSIC CHAMPAGNE
is often mistaken for grullo, as it is a similarly diluted black coat. But champagne has no stripes or undiluted black face | Classic = champagne on Black;
photo from "1Rainbowhorses" Yahoo discussion group | | CHESTNUT | GOLD CHAMPAGNE | Gold = champagne gene on Sorrel. (looks sort of like a metallic palomino)
 | BAY
(black + agouti) | AMBER CHAMPAGNE
(champagne on bay). This is Cathy Hill's FT mare, Callie | Amber = champagne on Bay Looks much like buckskin - but the eyes, skin, and chocolate points give it away!
Lots more pics, and clear explanations HERE | | CHAMPAGNE WITH CREME = “IVORY” | BUCKSKIN
(black + agouti + creme) | AMBER-IVORY CHAMPAGNE | Send Picture | PALOMINO
(red + creme) | IVORY CHAMPAGNE |
Ivory is a champagne gene with creme on sorrel.
(i.e. - palomino with champagne) | SMOKY BLACK
(black + creme) | CLASSIC-IVORY CHAMPAGNE | Send Picture | | CHAMPAGNE WITH DUN | DUN
(bay + dun) | AMBER CHAMPAGNE
WITH DUN | Send Picture | RED DUN
(chestnut + dun) | GOLD CHAMPAGNE
WITH DUN | Send Picture | GRULLA
(black + dun) | CLASSIC CHAMPAGNE WITH DUN | Send Picture |
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Gene table below originally written and designed by Karen Malcor-Chapman: | | | Basecoat | Red | Bay | Black | | + Champagne | Gold Champagne | Amber Champagne | Classic Champagne | | + Champagne & Creme | Gold Ivory Champagne | Amber Ivory Champagne | Classic Ivory Champagne |
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Champagne Information
- from HORSE GENETICS by the late Ann T. Bowling "The color term 'champagne' is specifically applied to a black-diluted color in Tennessee Walking Horses. The gene responsible also affects bays and probably chestnuts, but the names given those combination colors are usually the conventional terms buckskin and palomino (or the more vague descriptions dun and yellow). Champagne foals are born a smoky gray with blue eyes and pinkish gray skin. As the foals age, the eyes darken to hazel or brown, but the skin and coat remain light and distinctive. The eyes of newborn foals of the bay-diluted combination are also blue and darken with age, but information is not available about the eye color of the red (pheomelanin) foals.
The color trait is inherited as a dominant. It resembles the palomino/ buckskin dilution effect but is probably due to a different gene. From its phenotype it does not seem to be and allele of dun or silver dapple, but those possibilities and their combinations with this gene remain to be identified. We also have no information about the color of homozygotes. Champagne may be the same color as globrunn in Icelandic horses and lilac dun in other ponies."
(HORSE GENETICS, copyright 1997 CAB International, ISBN# 0-85199-101-7) American Cream Draft Horses are Champagne: 
Draft Horse Classic, Grass Valley, CA, 2001
They occur in both Gold and Ivory versions.
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