Rescuing Rusty

Sold at auction as a yearling, this horse sat in the feedlot until he was three. Luckily for him a loving family happened to drive by and spot him out there. They brought him home with them and he is now living the good life.  The first two pictures are him immediately after leaving the feedlot. The rest are later, after he had time to settle in.

He has a single whorl perfectly centered between the eyes. This only shows us that we don’t see any extremes of temperament from the whorl. We need to look at the rest of the head to get an idea of what he will be like.

From the side we see a slightly rounded profile, especially at the muzzle. He will have strong ideas of his own. Tough and determined as well as steady. His ears are set wide on his head showing intelligence and willingness. His head looks as simple and straightforward as we would hope to see with his whorl.

A short zipper whorl up the base of the neck will give a higher headset that arches nicely over the whorl and shows a horse who works well off the hind quarters.This one isn’t simple though it starts at a whorl off to the right side of the neck. The zipper whorl then runs at a slight angle over to the left side of the neck. Even more, the hair around the whorls grows to the right. When there is a single whorl on one side of the body, even when that whorl is connected to a bigger whorl pattern, the horse will turn more easily in the direction of the single whorl. The hair growing to the side adds emphasis to this. He should show some sidedness, a lead preference, an easier time circling one direction over the other. My guess is to the right. He could also bend to the right and throw the left shoulder out causing him to unbalance and take that lead.

It will probably not be a big deal, just something to be aware of.

It looks like the family who happened to drive by a feedlot and fall for the pretty grey horse standing out there mad a good choice.

This mare has a single center whorl. That doesn’t make her simple. A single center whorl only shows that we can’t see any extremes of temperament from the whorl. It is still completely possible to see extremes from the head shape. Not that we see any extremes here, we also don’t see anything boring and simple.

From the front we can’t get a true reading of her eyes. This is why it’s so important to remember that pictures are only a moment in time. If the horse is in a normal state that works great. When the horse is stressed or nervous, like here, we could get a completely wrong reading from this moment in time. The ears are wide set and fairly broad themselves for an intelligent, willing horse.

From the side we see a hint of a dish and a hint of a moose nose for a sensitive but bold, confident horse. Nothing extreme but not overly simple. Her muzzle is squared off, steady, her jowl large, athletic. Her eyes stand out the most to me. It could be her black eyeliner that makes them seem so exotic. They look to be strongly almond shaped. She will hold judgement and see what she thinks about things instead of going along with the flow.

Her mane switches sides about two thirds of the way down. I would check for soreness. It could be something very small or it could interfere with future training.

According to tradition some whorls are bad luck.

That is such a broad term. What exactly does it mean? How did someone decide such a thing?

I’m not one for superstition so I enjoy breaking it down and looking at possible causes for such superstition. One of the most famous whorls, and one of the easiest to break down is the shredded collar, a ‘wheat’ whorl up the base of the neck. First what does a wheat whorl look like? There are so many different types of whorls that appear on the base of the neck. Does that mean they are all ‘bad’?

I interpret the ‘wheat whorl’ as a big open splaying whorl, a wide line with the hair growing outwards from the center. That might not be the original interpretation. So many of these things are left to our imagination.

So why would this be bad luck?

This type of whorl will draw a horse down onto their forequarters and often accompanies a very downhill build. The neck will often be ewed and upside down. Some descriptions talk about wheat whorls that extend the entire length of the neck and down into the chest. This would exaggerate the effects even more so. That leaves us with a horse who is out of balance, working on the front end with the hind end not engaged. When a horse moves like this they are far more prone to lameness and tripping. Extreme lack of balance can lead to behavior issues that may lead a person to decide a horse is crazy. The horse in this picture would buck when pushed beyond what his body was capable of offering. When a good trainer stepped back and allowed him time to build the muscle and mental capability to perform the tasks asked of him he was a steady willing mount.

“Bad luck’ is a loose term that doesn’t help us at all in horse training. If, instead of dismissing problems as luck that we are unable to change, we look for physical issues behind the bad luck we are far better able to diagnose and fix the problems causing the bad luck. There are no bad whorls, not even this one.

Every horse should be judged according to their own individual nature.

If we look at a horse’s whorl wont it predispose us to judge them based on what we think the whorl tells us about them instead of who they tell us they are?

This is a very important point and not one to be dismissed. All horses are individuals. Even when born with a set of traits the way they are raised and the life they experience will change the way those original traits are expressed.

That said, even with the differences caused to nature by nurture, using the whorls to give us an idea about the horse in front of us can never hurt. Some of the old whorl lore tells us of horses that are bad or at least bad luck. If we go by that then yes, there can be harm. Instead we need to dismiss any idea of bad and simply accept different horses as just that, different. By looking at horses with that view we can use whorls to see beneath damage caused by life and see the horse they could have been instead. We can use the whorls to find a way to reach the best possible potential any horse has to give.

Whorls don’t cause bias against any horse. Instead they provide a deeper view of what is going on inside and how we can help the best possible traits rise to the top.