How can I set the background color of each option in a select

I have created a dropdown list using <select> and <option>. For each option I set the background color using: style="background-color:red"

This works using most browsers but I have just noticed that it does not work using Safari on a mac or iPad. Is there something that I can do so that I can set a background color for each option?

Or, how can I create an event that is triggered when the user hovers over each item in the list?

My site is written in Coldfusion and uses jQuery