In which I investigate a little bit of voodoo for myself

 Years ago, I got impatient with a Linda Tellington-Jones book that asserted that a horse's behavior could be predicted by--and essentially dictated by--the whorls of facial hair.  

Photo stolen from THIS ARTICLE 

I think Linda T-J's t-touch and massage techniques are extremely valuable.  But the hair whorl thing was a little too twinkle-twinkle-ding-dong for my taste. It seemed too much like voodoo, like phrenology gone very weird.

But apparently there's something to it.  If you like your science more science-y than just taking Linda Tellington-Jones' word for things, you might be interested to know that scientist Temple Grandin teamed up with a horse trainer and some behavioral researchers to investigate things.  They worked with cows (cows are cheaper than horses) and discovered that hair whorl position on cow heads can be indicative of calmness (or lack of calmness) that may be of value in selecting breeding cattle.  Here's a link to the abstract for that research, and a cool article about the process HERE.

If you really get into this, track down a journal called Applied Animal Behaviour Science.  The publication is a researcher's dream, addressing fascinating topics like defecation behaviors of cattle housed in differing situations and cognitive enrichment environments for domestic pigs. Who even knew these things exist?  Science wonks, apparently.

On page 244 of the June 2007 issue begins a report from Aleksandra Gorecka, entitled "A note on behaviour and heart rate in horses differing in facial hair whorl," describing the process of handling and startling a bunch of horses with "suddenly appearing novel objects".   Here's the link to the abstract.  You can also read a summary of the project HERE.

My first question for the researchers:  what did they consider a "suddenly appearing novel object" ?

Cookies?  clowns?  clowns with chainsaws?  clowns with white plastic grocery bags?

BooooOOOooooo!

The researchers used 31 horses that had been raised on a Polish forest reserve with minimal interaction with humans prior to the study.  They also used 22 horses raised in conventional stables in Poland.

Here's what they reported:

• Horses with high whorls were significantly harder to handle than those with middle or low whorls. 
• Horses with double or elongated whorls were more cautious, but not easier to startle and not harder to handle...but hold on.  Only forest-raised horses in this group had double/elongated whorls.  So, how much of the caution was related to living feral, and how much to a cowlick?  Hmmm.  
• Researchers didn't find any correlation between heart rate and whorl position.  That's interesting.  So, horses might act outwardly differently, but inwardly were not reacting differently.  Hmmm.

So.

Now what?

I thought I'd do a little investigation of my own.  So I wandered around with my camera phone and took pictures of cooperative-but-confused horses...specifically, pictures of their foreheads.

I won't do any interpretation--just description of the whorls I see in the photos.  Maybe folks who follow this stuff will jump in and tell us what the swirls and twirls "mean" in terms of trainability, curious v suspicious nature, and anything else you might expect to see with each individual.

Share your own photos too, please!  Maybe we can learn some stuff.

Puss - Large single whorl in the middle,
slightly higher than her eyes

Mama - Large single whorl in the middle, even with the eyes
plus a small single whorl very high, at the base of the forelock

Flower - large single whorl in the middle, between the eyes
plus a small single whorl very high, at the base of the forelock

Joe - a "feather" mark between the eyes, and a small
double whorl very high at the base of the forelock

Ross - nothing, nada, zilch (except mud)

Fee - large single whorl in the middle, between the eyes
plus a small double whorl at the edge of the forelock

Okay, go!