08/25/2026
Deacon is bottom middle, he’s center with an outlier. The description suits him to a T. I always study the whorls on my horses. It is very interesting, and helps me understand how they process my working with them, and how I can better understand their responses.
Most people know the basic whorls we find on a horses forehead.
🐴 A center whorl doesn't tell us much except that we don't see any extremes of temperament based on the whorl. That could mean a quiet, steady easy going horse, but it depends on what the rest of the head looks like.
🐴 A high whorl shows an extrovert. A horse who very invested in the external world, everything going on around them. They want to go, to be moving all the time. Emotional and sensitive they will be as brave as they can be and eager to please with a sensitive supportive rider or a nervous wreck with a harsh rider who doesn't give the support they need.
🐴 A low whorl shows an introvert, a horse who is content within themselves. They are busy thinking and processing the information around them. They can be overwhelmed by too much excitement around them. Instead of trying to make an introvert do anything, they need to be given a reason to listen. When there is feathering coming up from the whorl that makes them left brain, calm, easy going, confident, friendly.
What about the less common whorls though?
🐴 Who has seen a horse with three whorls? Triple whorls generally mean a horse who is a left brain extrovert. The born broke type, calm, curious, friendly, quick learners. They invariably come with quirks, some of them pretty interesting, but the owners that I've talked to have loved them.
🐴 What about a horse who has one whorl in the center of the forehead and another set up high and off to the side? The center whorl will give you a basic normal horse, most of the time. When the other whorl is placed high and to our right it will cause occasional bursts of extreme right brain extrovert behavior. A right brain extrovert is emotional, sensitive, and reactive. They want desperately to please and will try their hearts out for you if you offer them the support they need. If handled roughly they can be a nervous wreck and scared of everything. When they trust someone they will be as brave as they are capable and offer you all the love their big hearts can hold.
🐴 Sometimes horses will have two whorls. One clearly visible and maybe another? Something going on off to the side a bit higher or lower. There will be some feathering between the two. Mostly it’s just hard to tell what is going on.
That confusion causing combination of whorls is the hallmark of a diagonal double whorl. Two whorls set at an angle connected by feathering is not only confusing to look at but also causes a horse that is difficult to figure out.
A diagonal double whorl shows a horse who is a right brain introvert. It is the only high whorl that shows an introverted temperament. Horses with this whorl are said to sometimes blow up completely out of the blue. Actually they are quiet inwardly drawn horses who don't show outward sign of being upset. We miss the subtle signs they give us then think it came out of nowhere when they get upset.
🐴 Horse whorls are fascinating to look at. There are so many different whorl types, from the common to the one of a kind.
They all have their own meanings. For more information on horse whorls visit https://horsewhorls.com
