Like most American breeds, the Paint Horse also descends from the Iberian breeds taken to that continent during colonial times. These horses had broken colored coats and prospered in America in the wild. Later, the Indians domesticated this horse. They held this breed in very high esteem and attributed it magic powers.

Also called piebalds or screwbalds, the breed was named “Paint” due to their unusual skin coloration.

In the United Stated of America, the Paint Horse has always been associated with the West. He is nowadays on of the top choices for a rancher. 

The Paint Horse is a resistant yet agile breed, always ready to work. Very intelligent and with a friendly disposition, the Paint Horse is actually one of the most popular horse breeds.

Sturdy, compact, good to handle cattle, the Paint Horse has a medium body, but long legs. The head is narrow, the ears are medium sized and the eyes are alert.

The Paint Horse has a broken color coat, usually white with other colors like, black or brown. Grey and palomino are the less frequent colors. There are four kinds of patterns allowed:

• Solid – Solid coats are allowed if both parents are registered has Paint Horses. However these can’t be registered has Pintos.
• Tobiano – one of the most common combinations. Curved marks, usually in the chest and neck, four white legs, dark flanks, dark head (or with the white markings like those found in solid coats) and bicolor tail;
• Overo – Small and irregular marks spread over the body, but not crossing the back between the withers and tail. The head is with white asymmetrical dark markings. At least one of the legs should be dark. These horses can have blue eyes;
• Tovero – A combination of both patterns. It can originate a horse with blue eyes and four white legs, for example.  

Around mid 20th century, the Pinto Horse Associations was created to protect the painted horse. This organization accepts any horse that presents any of the coat pattern presented above, except solids. The horses can be of nay breed, as long as they have the broken coat. A decade later, it was founded the American Paint Horse Association. The APHA only accepts a horse that meets the coat pattern criteria and that is registered has Paint Horse, Quarter Horse or Thoroughbred. This means that every horse registered in the APHA can be registered as Pinto (the only exception is solid color pattern offspring of two Paint Horses), but not all Pintos are accepted has Paint Horses.

Due to the diversity of body types of Pinto Hoses, the classification Pinto tends to be seen as a color breed, rather than a breed in its traditional sense.
 

The Paint Horse is a versatile horse, used for walks, but also races, show jumping, etc. It is especially used as a ranch horse.