Other Identifying Features
Horses can be uniquely identified by more than just markings or brands. A few other physical characteristics sometimes used to distinguish a horse from another are:
- Whorls, colloquially known as "cowlicks": divergent or convergent patches of hair found anywhere on the body but mostly on the head, neck, chest, belly, or just in front of the stifles.
- "Glass" eye, "Moon" eye, "China" eye, "Wall" eye or "Night" eye: A blue eye. Horses with blue eyes are less common than horses with brown eyes, but can see equally well.
- Chestnuts: A callous-like area on the inside of the horse's leg that has a subtle pattern, but one unique to each horse. It has been proposed that chestnuts could be used as a type of "fingerprint" to identify a horse, but the idea has failed to become widespread in practice, probably in part because the chestnut continually grows and sheds, making precise measurement a challenge.
- "Prophet's thumbs," or muscle dimples, are small indentations in the muscle, usually found on the horse's neck.
Read more about this topic: Horse Markings
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