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.