Just a random thought...

Spur is probably the only dark-brown colored speaking pony in the whole show. Sorry Button Mash, fanmade episodes don't count.

Even she's surprised.

I mean they've got South Asian ponies (Saffron Masala), East Asian pony-creatures (kirin), and Chinese ponies (Mistmane), so it's not out of the question that ponies have implied "races." Is Spur implied to be African American? Especially since she comes from a rural, swampy area called "Hayseed Junction" that is similar to the Gulf Coast?

Maybe Spur doesn't have any implied race, but isn't it bizarre that we see so few ponies with human skin tones? Perhaps the show writers avoid using human skin tones when designing their characters to avoid complaints of racism. All the Mane 6 have pastel-colored fur (Rarity is white, but very few humans have completely white skin). The Humane 7 in Equestria Girls also have a wide variety of pastel skin colors.

On a more world-building note, perhaps the color of fur does not determine social status in Equestria, since physical differences in unicorns, pegasi, and earth ponies are enough to create "othering." There are more significant physical differences between ponies besides fur color that lead to separation into distinct social groups.

On that note, I'm just going to leave this here:

Source. Do not attempt. Trenderhoof has medium brown fur color, not dark brown like Spur.

And this:

Source. DEFINITELY do not attempt.

And this (do not watch if you don't like explicit rap):

Comments

[Thought Prism]

I like to think that Equestria, after the whole Windigo issue, has no racism. Especially since they have actual monsters to keep in check.

[Cpt Creampuff]

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I mean they have some racism. Remember how they acted towards Zebras. Maybe there's no racism between the 3 pony races but put side of that there might be some.

[The Cloptimist]

One of the first things Lauren ever said about this - in a Right to Reply type piece in response to an article in Ms that called MLP all sorts of unpleasant things - was to explicitly confirm that coat color means absolutely nothing.

"Color has never, ever been depicted as a race indicator for the ponies. When your characters are purple, blue, orange, yellow, black, white, red, green and pink, who’s to say which is supposed to signify a white person, a black person, an Asian person? The only races in My Little Pony are Earth Pony, Pegasus and Unicorn, and they are all treated equally, ruled by a leader who embodies the traits of all three. This leader is white only to signify day, and she co-rules with her sister, who is purple to signify night. Additionally, I’d just like to assure anyone who might still question the guards at the foot of the Princess’s throne that their colors were picked arbitrarily–and they are paid for their service."

I'd guess the reason we don't see many dark brown ponies is more to do with real life horses than humans - dark brown is a common coat color for real horses, and the show has very rarely depicted anypony with a "realistic" horse or pony coat/mane coloration (Trouble Shoes springs to mind).

[Mica]

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Oh yeah, I forgot about Trouble Shoes.

Good point from Lauren Faust herself.

[CoyoteXray]

I have noticed the color issue, especially when I designed one of my original characters. I made her brown with black mane and tail, mainly because I like that color combination in a horse, and because it would make her stand out from all the other more brightly colored ponies. But in doing so, I had to wonder if I was somehow defining the character by choosing that pattern. But, I felt that I just wanted her to be a bay, cause I like the combination.