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Re: [RC] Recognition of offspring - Barbara McCrary

Once when Lud and I were at the starting line of Tevis in Squaw Valley and they were still starting riders in groups of 10 (I think it was), a horse next to me started nickering to Lud's horse. The rider was Donna Fitzgerald, her horse was a Hyannis horse, as was Lud's, and they were half-brothers. Their recognition of relatives, or former pasture mates, is quite amazing.

Barbara

----- Original Message ----- From: "Ranelle Rubin" <raneller@xxxxxxx>
To: <heidi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>; <sensei@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: <ridecamp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, October 26, 2007 7:12 AM
Subject: [RC] Recognition of offspring


Last February, Ann Hall and I overnighted at Cheri Brisco's ranch, Misty Mountain Farms, on our way to my first Duck Ride..Eastern Mojave.

My 8 yr old gelding MMF Felarof (Fellow) was born there. He left there as a weanling, at age 6 or 7 months. When I unloaded him, he took a deep breath as he looked around..IN THE DARK...and immediately stared whinnying.

Cheri had me put him in a large paddock that bordered the mare pasture. His mother was in with all the other broodmares. He immediately ran up to the fence and within SECONDS, he and his mom were nose to nose..little nickers coming from them both. All the other mares took a step back, as she turned her head and pinned her ears at them. She is the oldest mare in the herd, at 23.

I woke during the night, and went out to check on him. They were nose to tail against the fence. When I loaded him in the morning to go to the ride, he kept looking over his shoulder back at her with soft nickers...as if to say, I am a big boy now!



Ranelle Rubin, Business Consultant
http://www.rrubinconsulting.com
Independent Dynamite Distributor
raneller@xxxxxxx

916-663-4140 home office
916-718-2427 cellular
916-848-3662 fax






From: heidi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To: "Beverley H. Kane,MD" <sensei@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
CC: RideCamp <ridecamp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: RE: [RC]   Cloning/Larmarck/Bey Shah Temperament
Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2007 10:54:02 -0700

> "Pure Darwinism" is still pretty much adhered to in scientific circles,
> especially as the counterpoint to creationism.

Well, not really. Science has zoomed far past Darwin, and I can't remember how long it's been since I've heard of "pure Darwinism" from anyone in the scientific community. I don't know that creationism needs a "counterpoint"--as one with a foot in both the religious world and the scientific world, I would submit that the phrase "pure Darwinism" is bandied about far more by so-called "creationists" who don't want to consider science at all and who spout it as a dirty word, and who in fact don't even read their Bibles very well, since they don't understand that the two (very different) creation stories in Genesis were never intended to be science, but instead were intended to underscore the nature of a higher power as it relates to humanity. Interesting stat: something like 85% of scientists believe in a higher power, and acknowledge that "creation" was not a random act but had to have some kind of a starter force. I would also submit that "creation" is an ongoing process, and that there is nothing about us or about our earth th
at is "finished" yet. Which leads one right back to science...

> Interesting!--your experience with foals from the same stallions. Is it
true
> that most foals never meet their fathers?

It is the exception rather than the norm for foals to meet their fathers in any sort of normal context, if at all. Nonetheless, when they do, it is often pretty clear that stallions recognize which foals are theirs and which are not, even when they are long separated from their dams, and I've also found that horses raised far apart from each other will often form family relationships within a herd when introduced to one another, even at quite advanced ages. It is downright eerie when we euthanize a horse here, how all of the close relatives in the upper mare pasture will rush to the fence to have a "funeral" while the less related ones seem to be relatively unaffected.

> "Environment" as an influence in forming neural connections is not just
> about "objective" visual, auditory, and tactile stimuli. At the Soul
level
> of the organism, the subjective responses to these stimuli are unique,
get
> hard wired into the brain, and may or may not be inheritable going
forward.
> We are talking Soul or Consciousness or, at the very least, for all you
> Social Darwinists, random herd behaviors. :-)

Sure. But how much of the difference is "hard-wired" into the brain to begin with, and then enhanced by "soul" level reactions? So much personality is evident right from birth--and I don't think it is necessarily random, either. (And I would also submit that while not all of it is necessarily genetic, a great deal of it still is.) Sometimes "random" is just a code word for "we don't understand why."

> Chaos theory being what it is, as soon as you introduce one unique,
random,
> individual influence--whether hard wired into the brain or genes or
not--the
> organism starts down an infinitely divergent path.

Yep.

> All I know is that, having about finished my book, I am starting to
> seriously look for my Soul Horse, and I don't care much about breeding.
I
> care about heart and eye and how we are together in the now (and being
less
> than 15hh).

And I will submit that its likelihood of coming from within specific family groupings is quite high.

Heidi

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Replies
[RC] Recognition of offspring, Ranelle Rubin