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WHOOOAAAAA, Heidi
Guess I must have touched a nerve or something. I briefly looked at your 
post before I was overwhelmed by your tirade about teenagers and my lack 
of values with same?  I was just talking about stallions and making a 
little humor--- lighten up girl :-)
Bette, who has raised three very well adjusted kids (and many well 
adjusted horses) and has been director of a program for troubled girls 
and now am being hired to set up a program for troubled girls using 
horse therapy. Hopefully I'm doing something right.  :-)

Heidi Smith wrote:

> WARNING:  LONG, DELETE IF THIS SUBJECT BORES OR OFFENDS YOU!
>
>  
>
> > Perhaps my stallions just have more sex drive :-) Those big Russians you
> > know! ;-)
> >    
>
> I sincerely doubt it.  Some of the sweetest, calmest stallions under saddle
> that I've been around are some of the most "driven" when on their home turf.
> And even then, it doesn't hurt them a bit not to "get any."  (And, please,
> what does ONCE A YEAR do to help out an oversexed stallion anyway??  Sorry,
> but now I've heard everything.)  And of course who can resist the obvious
> comeback to your line, which is if they are that difficult, why have them in
> the first place?
>
>  
>
> > I should add, though that they are well behaved and ride with mares in
> > heat with no problems. I have seen stallions who turn rank due to no
> > breeding (yes and who are treated kindly and ridden) and turn around in
> > temperament as soon as they are gelded. The vets here caution against
> > keeping a stallion who will not be bred occasionally. I guess it varies
> > from opinion to opinion---just like anything.
> >    
>
> Opinion is one thing--a good founding in knowledge of animal behavior is
> something else.  I'd say it has a WHOLE lot more to do with inherent
> disposition and management practices than it does with having testosterone.
> And sorry, but there just isn't any science to back up such a notion as
> "needing" to be bred.  (Are these male vets that need counseling
> themselves??)  Furthermore, the fact that a given stallion turns rank and
> the fact that he is not bred does not in any way mean that the latter caused
> the former.  That's kind of like hearing the roosters crow every morning,
> and assuming that that makes the sun come up....  (But then I've heard of
> people that believed that, too.)  I'd suggest your vets giving you this line
> should take the time to look up some of the good work by folks who study
> stallion behavior extensively--like Sue McDonell, PhD, and others.  Although
> I'll also admit to using almost any sort of warped "logic" on occasion to
> try to talk people into gelding horses that are an absolute menace to
> themselves and their owners.
>
>  
>
> > It would be interesting to find out just how many breeders/riders on
> > ridecamp have stallions that they rarely breed and how the stallions
> > behave.
> >    
>
> Our stallion that has been bred the most is actually the most challenging
> behavior-wise.  But there again, I don't think it has a thing to do with the
> actual breeding--I think it has a LOT to do with the fact that we didn't get
> him until he was 15, and he spent the 8 years prior to that living in a box
> stall and doing nothing except an occasional turnout and breeding mares.  By
> far our BEST mannered stallion in public (the one who got loose and never
> said a word--just went off to eat someone else's hay) has had some very
> lengthy gaps in his breeding career.  He did breed one mare when he was 4,
> then a gap, and then pretty intermittent since then.  He is so mannerly in
> public that at one point in his teens, I was sought out and ASKED after a
> Friday vet-in if I would go home (since I lived nearby) and get him for a
> young boy to ride, whose horse had failed the pre-ride vet check.  (This
> horse at age 22 may well get nearly as many mares this year as he's bred his
> whole life previous to now.  And BTW, he is one of the most "sex-driven"
> stallions you'll find--or at least was when he was younger--when he is in an
> actual breeding situation.  But he's also smart enough to know the
> difference.)  I've ridden many different stallions over the course of 30
> years in this sport (as well as riding them for other things) and I can tell
> NO difference in their public demeanor between times when we've bred a mare
> on Friday, hopped in the trailer and gone to a ride, and bred her again on
> Sunday when we returned, or when we haven't bred for 3 years.  I'll use
> Teddy Lancaster's stallion Raider as an example, too.  We picked him up at
> Fort Howes last year where the McAfees had brought him out from Ohio to meet
> us.  He hadn't been bred in years.   When we drove into ride camp, the
> McAfees were out busy with the 100-miler, and there was Raider, calmly
> standing in his hotwire pen.  We parked our strange geldings next to him and
> set up camp.  Nary a problem.  After the ride, we hopped him in the trailer
> with our two geldings with nary a problem and drove home.  Now this is a
> horse that is ALL BOY when the girls come by his pen in a situation that he
> recognizes as a teasing/breeding situation.  Mannerly, but ALL BOY.  Another
> of our stallions who was only sparsely bred prior to coming here (and not at
> all for several years right before) is Don Cesar--one of the kindest old
> horses imaginable, and who was perfectly fine at the last NW CMK symposium
> when I found him out in the barn aisle with Rick Synowski on the lead,
> giving pony rides to kids.  (In fact, we are contemplating using him to get
> my 84-year-old dad horseback again.)  But then we WANT to breed horses with
> this kind of sense and temperament, so we tend to select stallions with this
> kind of sense and temperament.
>
> Personally, I prefer either NO breeding or a reasonable amount of
> breeding--I think it is likely more frustrating for the stallion to just
> breed once, and then be thinking that he really IS going to be the great
> herd sire this season, and then doesn't get to be.  (Not that I let that
> bother me much, if that's what we have to do.)  Usually the WORST breeding
> for every stallion any given year is the first one.  So I hate to leave them
> with the impression that that's how it's done, and that any digressions from
> good etiquette are ok.  If we breed again, we get another shot at correcting
> the attitude.  But if we don't breed at all, the subject never becomes an
> issue.  MUCH better than "once."
>
>  
>
> > I never had the thought--- why geld?--- just the thought-- why
> > keep as a stallion? It was the way I was taught by my mentors in the
> > business. It would be interesting to hear another perspective.
> >    
>
> Well, to those of us riding and breeding, it isn't just a business.  We
> value our horses as individuals, and we value their genetics for specific
> reasons.  And when their time comes to breed, they do.  But that's the
> extent of it.  And personally, I really wouldn't care to USE a stallion for
> breeding that  DIDN'T have the kind of disposition that he can be managed
> not a lot differently than a gelding.
>
>  
>
> > And yes, I have mares who are climbing the walls to be bred and I wish I
> > could accommodate them---
> >    
>
> Just like stallions--take them out and give them a JOB to get their minds
> off their hormones!  Works for teenage boys, too...  Maryanne in Egypt has
> described on this forum more than once how most male horses in Egypt are
> left intact, ALL have jobs, and likely many never do get to breed.  And yet
> the streets aren't reduced to shambles by stallion orgies--quite the
> contrary, they are docile, quiet, solid equine citizens.
>
>  
>
> > but fortunately it only occurs several times a
> > year for short bursts and they have the rest of their girlfriends and
> > geldings in pasture to console them.
> >    
>
> My stallions all pretty much have friends nose-to-nose as well--horses ARE
> social animals, and I'd suspect far more stallions become rank from lack of
> social contact with other horses than from lack of sex.  (Quite frankly, if
> most humans had to make the choice between quick sex once a year with the
> rest of the time in solitary with nothing to do vs no sex and a good social
> life, I think most would choose the latter as well.)  And I'd submit that it
> is actually EASIER for stallions than it is for mares, since stallions have
> the same testosterone levels, day after day, with only a gradual seasonal
> variation--so they don't have to keep adjusting to different signals from
> their bodies.  Many stallions live out their entire lives as bachelors in
> the wild, and NEVER DO get to breed!
>
>  
>
> > whereas, in my experience, men it seems are more "ready for duty" at any
> > time and always seem to be up to the occasion :-)
> >    
>
> And males can maintain the "status quo" just fine, when that's how life
> happens to be.  They don't get "blue balls" or any such thing....
>
>  
>
> > Horses are probably just like people--- some always want more and some
> > can apparently do without (and these days with my work schedule, I know
> > I liked it, but some days I can't remember why!? ;-) )
> >    
>
> Sex is not like air and food.  It may be fun, but life CAN go on without it.
> Even for stallions!
>
> Heidi
>
> PS:  Since you insist on drawing parallels to humans, do you use this same
> rationale for teenage boys?  Do you think having sex as soon as they are
> able and encouraging them to do so on a regular basis will build character
> and make them better people?  I spend time teaching in an alternative
> school, and while I think the sexual activity among these kids is a symptom,
> not a cause, I can tell you flat out that a bunch of promiscuous kids are
> quite often a LOT rougher to handle than a bunch of kids whose parents have
> managed to drive home the message that you wait for the right girl.  Of
> course there is a lot more than sex involved here--but there is with
> stallions as well.  The latter group on the whole also gets better grades,
> is more apt to graduate, and a whole bunch of other good stuff.  FWIW....
>
>  

--
Bette Lamore
Whispering Oaks Arabians
Home of 16.2h TLA Halynov
who lives on through his legacy
Hal's Riverdance!
http://www.arabiansporthorse.com

Always remember: "Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away." (George Carlin)





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