Friday, May 1, 2015

It's Junk Science Time!!

the novelty stirrups of training
Some months ago now, I was lucky enough to meet Roxie's mom in person. She is like, WAY WAY cooler than I am, but she's also cool enough that she can hang out with uncool people. So I'm a fan. (Also her blog is hilarious. Read it.)

Anyways. We got talking about the junk science of "swirlology" or "whorlogy" (snort) and that while it is OBVIOUSLY AND DEFINITELY JUNK, it also can be sort of strangely true for inexplicable reasons.

You doubt?

This article in the Horsemanship Journal tries to make it sound mildly credible and is probably your best bet at preventing eye strain from extreme rolling. If you want to go more in depth (put an eye brace on), the full description is here.

wtf
It's an intriguing idea--can we read important clues to a horse's personality in just the seemingly random swirls of hair on their bodies?

So let's take a totally annecdotal look at what Courage's swirls say about him:

He sports a high, double side-by-side swirl. As per the Fox Point Farm site, this means:

  • High swirls usually goes with a more active mind
    • The more focused the swirl, the more possible focus in the mind.
  • Double or triple swirls indicate multiple personalities. Horses with multiple face swirls can be more complicated and can be more difficult to initially read and address appropriately... They may require more patience, time, skill and understanding to train/develop. They may surprise/let you down at an important moment by switching personalities, especially by going from confident to unconfident in the blink of an eye. Confidence must be diligently developed in every horse, but these especially.
    • Many Grand Prix horses in both dressage and jumping have very high, very tight side-by-side double swirls. This type of double swirl seems to give the ability to hyper focus. These horses are challenging and gritty, like most double swirl horses, but the ability to hyper focus and not back down from a challenge can be an asset in professional hands.
  • Double (or more) swirls will not take the pounding and criticism that many single swirl horses will accept/endure. One must be fair and just in all requests. 
  • 'Double and Triple Swirl horse' has an uncanny ability to 'mirror' its rider to a degree most single swirl horses do not.
  • Body position of the rider and mind/emotional control of the rider is of utmost importance, these horses can change in a moment, much faster than their single swirl friends... for the rider/trainer who functions at a higher level of physical and emotional fitness, these horses can be amazing.
TOYS OUT NOW
I KNOW I KNOW I KNOW. It's junk science at it's finest. Eye roll away. 

No really, I'll wait. Get it out of your system. 

Ok. I really don't think I believe all this stuff, but at the same time, it pretty much describes my horse in a nutshell. I want to make the argument that it's like horoscopes and if you squint a little, they literally describe anyone in an entire population, but... 

peaceful
But I've watched people ride through all kinds of things that would make C Rage THROW HIS TOYS OUT OF HIS CRIB and not even bat an eye... and yeah... he's my easy, lazy, dead head OTTB until he's not, and then he's REALLY not. 

Soooo... anyone else want to check out what the swirls mean on their horses and tell me if it's total crap? It really is an entertaining way to spend 10 minutes.

30 comments:

  1. This is super interesting. I need to inspect Roger's face and report back.

    Does this article say anything about the combo of a big blaze AND a googly eye? ;)

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  2. I've also given these articles a hefty eye roll, then read them, and though hmm... that actually makes sense. I think comparing them to horoscopes is quite accurate.

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  3. Sounds fun! Eyerolls included. Uhm...love the toys picture.

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  4. #1 I LOVE ROXIE AND I'M SO JEALOUS YOU GOT TO MEET HER MOM!
    #2 this is ridiculous and should prove HIGHLY entertaining while I procrastinate doing Really Important Adult Real Estate Stuff.

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  5. Hahahahaha.... love it! I'll have to check out Paddy's swirls, but TBH i think they're completely negated by his super-floofy forelock.

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    1. Yeah they probably need to account for the floof factor.

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  6. For me it's like horoscopes and all of that. Are they real science? Heck no. Are they a whole lot of fun to look at? I think so. :)

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  7. Ok so do you know how hard it is to find a photo of my pony's face straight-on without him poking his nose out at me for snacks?? Anyway.. Dino has a single "ideal" simple swirl. Apparently this means his personality is consistent (i.e. total pain in my ass 24/7), and he doesn't give a shit about what I do. Which is fairly accurate? I feel that the double- and triple-swirl horses got a lot more attention in that article and I feel neglected! But he has a 'favorable' windpipe swirl too so yay? That was amusing.

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    1. Haha, nice. I had to specially take pictures because despite how many pictures I have, NONE of them were the right angle/lighting/fly-bonnet-free.

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  8. lol i kinda love these types of things - or personality quizzes etc. no, none of it is "REAL" , but who cares? it's fun :)

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  9. Totally gonna follow Roxie now!

    While it is pretty spot on with my horses, App is definitely bi-polar with multiple personalities with a high double swirl. TWH and Mia both have a single swirl smack dab in the middle of their face and are certainly more consistent, sane and agreeable. That said, I do think it is junk science and the comparison to horoscopes is pretty accurate.

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  10. Courage's swirls are far more in line with Pig's personality than Pig's swirls. Pig is usually very much his own damn horse, and screw whatever labels anyone wants to throw on him. ;)

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  11. My trainer (reining trainer) believes in this completely. I don't really, but he assesses all the horses that come in for training. When I brought Copper in with his issues (WILD bucking and hatefulness) he read his whorls and described him right after Copper got off the trailer. His whorls certainly match his personality.

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  12. Say it with me: "Correlation does not equal causation." "The plural of anecdote is not 'data'." I also like that the author's only credentials are "Producer of APHA World Champion horses and riders". Seems legit ;)

    According to their whorls, Spider is a homicidal, untrainable maniac ( low Z whorl), Jack is secretly a genius GP horse (high, tight side by side whorl) and Spots and Vinny are just regular old horses (loose single whorl right between the eyes). Interesting, since Vinny was the actual unpredictable, homicidal, untrainable maniac.

    Although, Jack is absolutely covered in whorls all over his body (seriously, his JC description is a paragraph long) and I only read the description for the head whorl. Maybe he has a genius-canceling "slow, clumsy and kind of dumb" whorl somewhere on his body.

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    1. Oh, I loved the part about "we believed this horse was dangerous and crazy, so we kept reselling him to unsuspecting saps". ;-)

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  13. A) I didn't read the articles. And B) I took one of the bullet points and took out all the crap about swirls:
    Horses can be complicated and can be difficult to initially read and address appropriately... They may require patience, time, skill and understanding to train/develop. They may surprise/let you down at an important moment by switching personalities, especially by going from confident to unconfident in the blink of an eye. Confidence must be diligently developed in every horse.

    NOW THAT is true.

    But if you read my tea leaves I will totally believe you.

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  14. Fascinating and entertaining!

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  15. I did all of my horses a few months ago to see if the swirl thing was accurate...I didn't buy it...but then, it nailed all of my horses perfectly. I wouldn't necessarily use it as a make or break thing, or buy/not buy a horse based on a swirl on it's head, but hey.

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  16. Um, I may be taking this a step further and engaging one of those over the phone animal communicators. I mean, why pay for an MRI when you can use ESP!????? way more better.

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  17. Tucker has five swirlies. FIVE. This should be fun....

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  18. Miles has a very similar swirl, but not quite as high and tight as C-Rage. So maybe that means he's slightly less focused and slightly less multiple personality? Lol

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  19. My girl has swirls all over the place, but according to that article they're all associated with good fortune and prosperity. I'll take it!
    As a side note, I know nothing of the real science behind coat swirls, but can they be an inherited trait? Both my Welsh D'd have crazy coats and they are closely related. (Sample size of 2, it must be true lol) That might explain some of the supposed correlation with behaviour.

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  20. went out - looked at my girls - all 3 had low tight swirls on their heads - all are highly intelligent, active to the point of spooky and devious, horses. Stopped there as it said that the swirls that are low are set aside for "slow" horses, hah!

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  21. Heaven forbid anyone gets it into their heads to start breeding for swirls the way the current fad is to breed for colour...

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  22. So I know the whirlology thing sounds totally stupid. Totally, totally stupid. But it PERFECTLY matches my mares, all of them. When my new filly came out with one single high whirl I will admit I breathed a sigh of relief, as stupid as it sounds. Her mother has two high tight side by side whirls and I have to watch her to make sure she doesn't steal my credit cards and run for Mexico.
    I've seen some really crazy erratic swirls, and they really did correspond to absolutely insane behavior. As in - horse was completely dangerous and irrational, and somewhere along the line I was reading about swirls, and went to go check the horse... two zig zag different sized swirls. Started checking all my client horses - hundreds of horses and by and large they match their swirls. I know it sounds stupid but there really does seem to be something to it!

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  23. Murray is like Dino -- single swirl right in the middle of his eye line. So he's apparently very straight forward and "single" personalitied -- aka ALWAYS A WEIRDO. I think these are a lot like horoscopes but have had a good time reading about them anyway.

    Murray DOES have a girth swirl though.... and he's wicked girthy. Think of what you will. ;)

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    1. O has offset swirls on her neck, and has a way easier time bending in the direction of the lower swirl... so maybe it is true!

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  24. Hero also has double swirls.. and is a super steady eddy, so I hope I never see the other half of his double personality ;-)

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  25. Hero also has double swirls.. and is a super steady eddy, so I hope I never see the other half of his double personality ;-)

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