My mare used to "go until she dropped," but now she slows down
any time she decides it's time for a break. It took a while for the overly
excited edge to wear off and for her to become sensible. Her oldest son
(gelding), still continues to race until exhaustion - especially if he sees
another horse in front of him, whereas her youngest son (also a gelding) has
this "que sera, que sera" attitude and will willingly do whatever you ask -
fast, slow, stop - he's fine with it. I think he's a 100 miler in the
making! Anyway, from my experience, it's not a mare vs. gelding thing, but
an individual horse thing. Two of my friends have geldings - one will race
himself into the ground if he thinks there's a horse in front of him somewhere
and the other barely vets in at a 9 most of the time.
<<They'll go until they drop. A gelding knows how to
protect himself better. It's harder to get him to give everything."
>>
I know this will probably catch some
flack, but I WANT an endurance horse who will tell me when he's had
enough. I do NOT want to ride a horse who will "go until they
drop". I'm sure that's not true of all mares (the going till they drop
thing), but thinking that's a "good" thing is a scary thought to me
personally.
