but that's mainly because they always have some spots left that the rider
didn't have the time to scrub off ;-)
White horses are born white. They have pink skins and usually blue or
pink eyes and that grey horses are born dark with dark skin. Hair becomes
whiter with age until pure white. A gray may range from iron gray (nearly
black) to dapple gray, white gray or flea-bitten gray (with tiny flecks of
black or brown).
Only, those white horses are not white are I suppose Snowmane is, but albino.
So what you have heard might be that white horses are actually grey as long as
they're not albinos. Or, they might be white as the horses they use in the
Spanish riding school in Vienna. They're born black, but turn white when they
grow older.
Here's an Icelandic
example of that.
I don't know how much Tolkien thought about that though, I don't think he
thought about whether Swowmane was born black and then turned white, or was
born nearly white and stayed
white.
Das Fräulein stand am Meere... Das Fräulein stand am Meere
Und seufzte lang und bang,
Es rührte sie so sehre
Der Sonnenuntergang.
Mein Fräulein! sein Sie munter,
Das ist ein altes Stück;
Hier vorne geht sie unter
Und kehrt von hinten zurück.
-"Heine"-
