The article comprises to the consideration of lexico-semantic group of words denoting horse coat names in Russian and English. Information on the composition and characteristic features of the above-mentioned groups, as well as on the existence of equivalents and the word-forming potential of horse coat names is given. The main part of the article regards to the usage of horse coat names in works of fiction and the ways of translating them from Russian into English and vice versa. The translation methods such as generalization, concretization and substitution are briefly characterized and illustrated with examples from a work of fiction and their corresponding translation. Several cases in which the used method is difficult to define are included. The article also describes the reasons for the usage of generalization, concretization and substitution in translation of horse coat names in the works of fiction.