Hi Janice & Virginia > cause I bought Nasi without checking it out first and he has the > dreaded "torn shirt" or shredded wheat collar whatever its called, the > cowlick running up the center at the base of the neck. And he is > also dun
>I was told that Orri's cowlick on his chest means he's 'special'..... That is the 'wheat ear' on the underside of the neck that Linda talks about. We have had some discussion about this because I don't think that it is always means bad luck or anything negative. This was the belief of the Bedouins that she spoke to but I have met many horses with this and there have been no problems with them. In fact the whole concept of the personality analysis and swirls is that you can have a horse that has a particular tendency but how you work with them and train them can make all the difference in how the horse turns out. It just gives you some ideas that it can be helpful to look for horses that suit your personality as well. Ie a quick learning person may not do as well with a horse that has the tendency to be a little slower. The whole swirl (cowlick) study is kind of interesting. Seven years ago I was talking about them on one of the old Icelandic lists and one of the Icelanders who was an active list poster quoted from a book called "Hestar" by Teodor Arinbjornsson the following about body swirls (of which Linda does not write much about in her book Getting in TTouch, Understand and Influence your Horse's Personality. 1. Flugfjardir - Flying feathers are swirls in a row under the mane. It was believed that those horses who had 3 feathers on each side of the neck had better endurance and were hard workers 2 Perursstingir - Saint Peters sticks are swirls on the jugular area on the neck and they should be at the same place on both sides. It was considered lucky to own a horse with 3 sticks (I guess he meant swirls) they were marks from St. Peters fingertips. 3. Straumfjadrir - Stream feathers (long ones I would guess is what this means in translation) on the breast and they were considered to be more secure in water than other horses. It's all interesting and when I work with horses the first thing I do is a quick assessment of their tendencies - it has been very helpful to me. Robyn Icelandic Horse Farm Robyn Hood & Phil Pretty Vernon BC Canada www.icefarm.com !
