Behavior Genetics of the Horse (Equus caballus) - Genetics and the Behavior of Domestic Animals - page 265

correlations between hair whorl position and performance were found in this
study either. However, some interesting trends emerged, and of particular
interest, two of the biggest money earners in each sample had double hair
whorls. One of these was a horse named Big Ben. He was regarded as one of
the greatest show jumping horses of all time. Inducted into the Canadian
Sports Hall of Fame in 1999, he held two World Cup titles and two Masters
Grand Prix wins. Big Ben was ridden by Ian Millar, one of the most successful
competitors in the history of Canadian show jumping. Miller once described
the gelding as “a skittish elephant,” referring to his size and nervous tempera-
ment ( Equestrian College Advisor, 2012 ). In the race horse sample, the horse
with the most wins and money earnings was a 6-year-old gelding named Sir
Beaufort. At the time, his earnings were $1.15 million, and in 1993, he was
rated the number one older handicap horse in the nation. His trainer, Charles
Whittingham, is one of the most acclaimed trainers in U.S. racing history.
Similar in temperament to Big Ben, Sir Beaufort had a slow start in his racing
career because of his difficult nature. According to his owner, Victoria
Calantoni, “He was a quirky horse. For a long time, he had trouble loading
into the [starting] gate. They had to load him twice in the Santa Anita
Handicap because his jockey broke a bridle. Besides that, he was always just a
little headstrong. He doesn't like the whip a whole lot; if the jockey fought
him, he just got worse, not better” ( Meixel, 1993 ). These two horses illustrate
the sometimes difficult nature of horses with two whorls observed by the first
author. Horses with double or elongated whorls were also characterized by
Tellington-Jones and Taylor (1995) as “unpredictable” or “over-reactive.
Increase of Double Whorls in Racing and Jumping Horses
In the sample of racing and jumping horses, we found 16% (68 horses) with
two whorls ( Swinker et al., 1994 ). This percentage is considerably higher
than the 4.4% (16 horses) in a sample of 362 Konik horses reported by
Gorecka-Bruzda et al. (2006) , and higher than the 10.9% double whorls (six
horses) in a second sample of 55 Konik horses ( Gorecka-Bruzda et al., 2007 ).
Grandin et al. (1995) found 5% double whorls in 1500 cattle; Randle (1998)
reported one double whorl out of 57 cows; Tanner et al.(1994) found 3.2%
double whorls in 1379 dairy cows; Smith and Gong (1973) reported 7%
double whorls in 200 normal children; and Lauterbach and Knight (1927)
found 1.4% double whorls in 1003 normal children, and 6.5% double whorls
in 751 children with developmental disabilities. It is intriguing that the per-
centage of double whorls in racing and jumping horses is nearly double the
percentages found in all other samples cited in the literature.
Hair Whorl Height and Reactivity in Horses
Gorecka-Bruzda et al. (2007) published the first scientific evidence on the
relationship between hair whorl position and reactivity in horses. The study