Hi Susan, Hi Susan, The pictures were fine.
I just spoke with Linda and her first words were that Whisper looked like a really sweet horse. Looking at her mouth you notice that mouth is a little short and her lower lip looks a bit thick (this can be very deceiving in the winter with the extra hair and the length of mouth can really change depending on the situation. When horses are tense or concerned about things some horse's mouths will get shorter and tighter than usual - just like people). It can indicate that when she is confused that she will have a tendency to get a bit inflexible - can be mental and physical. Also looking at the eyes it looks like she can get worry lines (little triangles about her eye) - with this type of horse they can be emotional and if you get upset with them when they are concerned they get worse. Linda said it also looks as though her nostrils were slightly narrow and one looked different from the other in these photos. She has a soft open eye and I think she is concerned about other horses around her when she is ridden because she doesn't have the choice to get away. Linda suggested doing leg exercises with her (I have to turn a few things into pdf's to send them to you) especially back legs. The leg exercises and the tail work will help release some of the tension in her rear end which would be increasing her concern when other horses are behind her. Janice made some good observations from the photos. There are many kinds of ground exercises you can do with horse, and I think you have been doing some, but ground work alone does not help release tension and fear and it is not just about training the horse. We find it more helpful if you can release tension and stress which helps horses change behavior so you don't just have to repeat the same thing every time before you ride. The personality analysis that Linda has done for years first came from a book that Professor Berry wrote many moons ago and Linda really started looking at horses faces. Most people that have been around a lot of horses for a long time may get a 'sense' of horses from their faces. In the 60' Linda and her first husband, Wentworth Tellington, had a research farm with about 3000 members. They did a survey of their members gathering information about 100's of horses and what the owners noticed about certain characteristics. In the 70's Linda had her own personality read from the Institute of Physiogamy (sp?) in San Francisco and she was really surprised at how accurate the feedback about her own tendencies were - they took 72 measurements on her face and gave her a tape. It wasn't about making judgments about good or bad just tendencies. Many sales people take courses to help them get a sense about how best to give information when selling something - depending on certain facial characteristics. I can't remember them now but have a book about it - things like certain people respond better to just being given straight information about something and other people do better being sold something on the golf course - if you know what I mean. The personality analysis for horses can be really interesting and helpful to people. It is not to say that one characteristic always means the same thing nor that you can't work with it. It is combinations of characteristics that make up the whole picture. For instance, if you have a horse with a small eye, small nostril and ears that don't move very much - it is generally a horse that had not been given a lot of input and may seem not very smart. However, if you can give those horses input that they can understand - and that is where groundwork can really help - you will actually see the eyes open more as well as the nostrils and that the ears become more aware of things. Dished faced horses have a tendency to be more reactive than a straight faced horse. It is said that the Bedouins sold their dish faced horses overseas and kept the straight faced horses for their own. Maybe the dish in the face changes how they see things, just like a bulge between the eyes can indicate more reactivity. It is not about expecting these things but rather understanding them and knowing that you may have to work with these horses in a different way - and have them end up fine. Linda's first book about TTEAM published in 1985 was based on evaluating the personality of 6 different horses at Reken that were then worked with by a group of 8 amateur horse people (Christine Schwartz was one of those people and she brought with her a very difficult Standardbred mare) for 3-4 weeks each. The horses were all considered to be challenging and it was their last hope. Ursula Bruns (founder of Reken and author of many books) wasn't sure that the TTEAM method was teachable because Linda had used the basis of her Feldenkrais training to develop the work and wanted to test it with this group of horses. The change in the horses' behavior was dramatic and they also actually had facial changes. It does actually make sense if you consider that tension in the facial muscles will change how you look - if the mouth or eyes are pinched. If facial characteristics show the horse to have the tendency to be a bit slower to learn then an impatient person may not do well with them. OTOH sometimes a horse looks uncomplicated and open and shows little indication of being complicated and yet they display big issues - in those cases Linda really suggests that a person look at the horse for physical problems. We do that first and foremost with any horse that is difficult and don't discount the possibility just because a horse may display tendencies in facial characteristics. I hope this is somewhat helpful to you Susan and will do my best to get some of the specific articles to you - ie about the promise wrap and tail work because I think they will give you some immediate changes. Robyn Icelandic Horse Farm Robyn Hood & Phil Pretty Vernon BC Canada www.icefarm.com -----Original Message-----
