fleabitten

I did not know what color you are when you are a fleabitten horse. So when I saw that listed in yesterday's list of horse attributes, naturally I assumed it was some ye olde medieval expression.

I was wrong. The color "fleabitten" is still extant. Allow me to rip off Wikipedia's definition:

Fleabitten gray is a color consisting of a white hair coat with small speckles
or "freckles" of red-colored hair throughout. Most horses who become fleabitten
grays still go through a brief period when they are pure white. . . One unique
form of fleabitten gray is the "bloody shouldered" horse. This is an animal that
is so heavily flea-bitten on certain parts of the body, usually the shoulder
area, that it almost appears as if blood had been spilled on the horse, hence
the name. In the traditions of the desert Bedouin people who bred the
Arabian horse, the "bloody shoulder" was a prized trait in a war mare and much
desired.

The wind of heaven is that which blows between a horse's ears. ~Arabian Proverb