Rescuing Rusty

Why would looking at whorls on a horses head or body be able to give us any information about the horse?

It seems silly doesn’t it. Why do we bother looking at whorls and think they will tell us anything? Believing a bunch of old wives tales is ridiculous.

Although the stories have been around forever, we are finding new, scientifically based, reasons for their existence all the time. Just because the science wasn’t there before to tell us why whorls work doesn’t mean they didn’t work until we found out why. All the recent studies do is confirm what we already knew.

The skin/hair layer develops in the womb very early on, while the fetus is still so tiny that everything is touching and connected. As it grows any pressure from the inner layers onto the outer layers causes changes in the way the outer layers develop. It can be physical pressure or extra blood flow. As the fetus grows those changes stay in the skin to affect the hair growth.

It makes sense that some of these changes are ones that are passed genetically, temperament and conformation are passed from parents to foal so matching whorls would be expected. In a recent study scientists were able to isolate the genomic regions associated with hair whorl traits in horses.

Genomic regions associated with hair whorl traits in horses were successfully identified, they reported. In these regions, many genes related to hair follicle growth were investigated, with evidence indicating they influenced whorl-related traits, “some of these genes also have known neurological and behavioral functions.”

That part is accepted and generally without question. The evidence shows that there is good reason to believe whorls and temperament are related.

That leaves us to figure out just how they are connected. While there have been some very nicely scientific studies done on this, most of it is hearsay and personal experience. If we find two horses of the same whorl who display a certain behavior the next thing to do is to look for a third and fourth horse with the same whorl to compare behavior. With common whorls finding many horses who match is easy. Other times there are whorls that are so rare it is hard to find enough to compare. Other times the behavior is obscure enough that it is hard to isolate and relate to one whorl or whorl pattern.

The study of whorls is only just begun. There is so much out there left to learn. It’s going to continue to be a fun and fascinating journey!

Some whorls come with very specific ‘meanings’. The S shaped feathering is one of those.

When a horse has feathering on their forehead that twists and turns, sometimes in the shape of an S, others are just squiggly, it is said that horse will be accident prone.

While it does often hold true I think it’s important to look at what ‘accident prone’ actually means. It should be fairly obvious that the whorl doesn’t cause the horse to get hurt. Whorls are signs of what is going on inside the horse, not portents of things to come. What we need to look for is what behavioral tendencies come with the whorl that may cause the horse to behave in such a way as to get themselves injured more often than is usual.

Unfortunately I don’t know what those are. What sort of traits would cause a horse to do things resulting in injury? Feathering coming up from a whorl show left brain traits. These include being confident, curious, friendly, calm, fearless. That doesn’t mean that horses who are left brain will always display all of these traits, they are examples of the sort of behavior we can expect to see, not a list of what we will see.

Could playfulness be the cause of the accidents we often see with an S shaped whorl? Being overly confident could mean not worrying about results as they play their way through life. Curiosity could easily lead to injury. Is the S shape of the whorl a sign that one of these traits is more strongly developed than when the feathering is in a straight line?

Unfortunately there are more questions than answers when it comes to this whorl type. The important take away is that whorls show behavioral tendencies. They do not show what a horse is destined to experience in life. We need to look for underlying causes instead of superstition.

This horse has a high center whorl. That shows an extrovert. Extroverts are very invested in the external world, everything going on around them. They want to go, to be moving all the time. Intelligent, emotional, and sensitive they will be as brave as they can be and eager to please with a sensitive supportive rider or a nervous wreck with a harsh rider who doesn’t give the support they need.

What it doesn’t tell us is if he will be a right  brain or left brain extrovert. The two can be almost completely opposite. That is where we get into trouble if we only look at the whorl. It is so important to take the entire head into consideration.

From the front we see eyes an average width apart, not much info there. The ears are wide but shapely, sensible, willing, not overly sensitive but not dull either.

The side view gives us a mostly straight profile, steady, maybe a bit convex? That adds physical toughness. Not that they will be tough to work with but that they can stand up to hard work and their bodies can take it. The muzzle appears to be rounded, that shows some strong ideas of his own about how things should go. His eye is curious and interested in what’s going on around him. That whole invested in the external word thing. But without being overwhelmed by it.

I would say he tends more to the left brain extrovert side of things. Alert and aware but not worried about what is going on around him. More curious and friendly.

There are so many parts of the horses head that give us clues to their temperaments.

The chin and lips are some of these. They are unique from things like eyes and ears in that they are muscle.

The shape of eyes, ears, and profile are fairly well set. The horses are born with them and they don’t change. Chins and lips change and grow with the horse as the horse matures and develops their own unique personality. Which brings us to a very important question.

Does the shape of the chin and lips, the muzzle, show what the temperament will be or does the temperament cause the shape of the muzzle?

Frown lines don’t cause a person to spend their time frowning. Frowning causes frown lines to develop. Or, to the contrary, laugh lines. The way a person thinks, acts, and holds themselves is the cause of the way the lines of the face develop.

If a horse is curious and wants to explore with their mouth does this develop the muscles in the upper lip making it shapely and curvaceous? If a horse carries tension in tightly drawn lips does this build the muscling of the lips and chin adding lines, ridges, and layers for a complicated chin?

Some things, certain shapes and characteristics, are inherent and unchanging. A chin that comes to a point that gets hard with the lip flattening and extending when the horse is upset, is a born trait that accompanies several other traits. The sensitive skin that tends to wrinkle more than normal, that accompanies this chin type is far deeper than muscle development.

Looking at the way the muzzle develops over time can give us a lot of information. How much is cause and how much effect? That is hard to say.