All in the head

[Joltman]

A friend sent me a snatch from a book on Arabs called, My Quest for the Arab Horse. The author notes how Bedouins judge horses based on their head -

" The Bedouins we met laughed over the few Europeans they had seen coming to buy stallions for various European governments. These men, they said, instead of looking at the horse's head, looked first at his feet and ankles. They could not understand that. If they were going to trust me with their purses and, what was more, their life, they declared they would look first for twenty minute, in my face and eyes and not pay so much attention to my feet. While it was, of course, understood that a horse's legs and feet should be perfect, still a horse showed even what his legs were made of by his head and no horse was ever better or worse than what his head showed. They defied me to pick out one of the distinguished war mares that did not show her distinctive characteristics more plainly in her head than in the rest of her makeup. And I found they were right.

Horseflesh and horse lore are the same the world over, after all, After returning to this country I told Mr. James R,Keene, the greatest of our turfmen, of the Bedouin method and he said that he followed i himself. He told me that for years he had been in the habit of picking out, as the most likely of his colts and fillies, those which had the best headd, and he added that he had seldom been deceived. The heads showed better than the heels of what stuff the youngsters were made. .."



Does anyone out there know of this, or still have the savvy to determine the quality of a horse looking almost solely at the head?

Seen this at the sales anyone?

jm

[wilf]

I agree that the head will tell you all you wish to know. A flat forehead is my favourite but the eye will always show you what lies within. A small eye will give you trouble even if the horse can run a little but a large bright eye will give you everything unless it bears a worried look around it's edges. The great trainer Vincent O'Brien stared over the stall door at a small yearling's face time and time again at the Keeneland July Sale in the mid-seventies and said that the horse "spoke to him". Of course it didn't hurt that the colt was out of a half sister to Nijinsky but he was small. History will show that this little guy became multiple classic winer The Minstrel and let down at stud into the chestnut image of his sire ,the magnificent Northern Dancer.

[spex4me]

Okay I as usual would love to see some visual examples.