Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

Ok, campers, here's one for the record books, something to take your mind off the horrors of the Derby. A friend of mine brought me two horses to board a couple of months ago. Elvis is about five, a drop dead gorgeous young baladi Arab who was gelded about 6 months or more ago. Although he's only five, he's already had a tough life and it took his owner a year or so to find sanctuary at my place. At one pyramids stable he was beaten silly and locked in a dark box when his owner, who had to undergo surgery, didn't come almost daily. At the last place, Elvis was raped by a loose stallion, leaving him with a painful hematoma.  The other horse, Red, has had it even worse. He is about 7 or so, a gelding of only about 3 weeks, but even as a stallion, he had the most lovely manners. The price of admission at  my place, however, is gelding and his owner didn't see any reason not to. She acquired him at her last stable when she found that he was being ridden by a renter who didn't realise that the horse had no skin on his back and had pockets of maggots because the stable grooms always brought him out tacked up.   I saw the back about a month into healing and it was enough to make you want to vomit then, but now, about  5 months on, he's coming along nicely and being ridden very gently. 

So the background is interesting enough. Now, we move to the present problem. I have a line of small (5 x 10 metre) paddocks where we put horses who either haven't yet been introduced to the herd, or those who for whatever reason don't do well there. We figured that  as Red and Elvis knew each other and had gotten along fine while riding, they could have adjoining paddocks while they learned to be social animals again. Most horses in Egypt are kept in boxes for human convenience...which I think is roughly equivalent to raising kids in closets. What we found when we put the two horses next to each other was that Elvis made a huge fuss over Red, including a massive erection for most of the day, while Red would tolerate the fuss for a while, then turn away.  We thought that maybe Elvis' neighbour on the other side (my mare Stella and her 6 week old son) was causing part of the problem, so we switched places for them, putting Red next to Stella. Today as we watched the boys after riding, Elvis went into his oversexed act again and we watched him seeming to court Red, who would put up with it for a bit, then squeal and back off to a neutral corner.  Later, when we weren't near the paddocks, Elvis actually jumped the fence between him and Red...no injuries, thank heaven...and when Red didn't greet  him with open arms, turned to kick the daylights out of him. We split them up...way split up ...before there was any problem.

So what do you think, oh experienced horse owners and vets? Ever seen a flaming gelding? What do you think that we have here? We are going to try putting Elvis between the donkeys and the mule with another gelding who is a bit of an elderly curmudgeon next  to Red. Elvis has seemed to get along with pretty much everyone other than Red...Go figure.

I await your wisdom.

Maryanne
-- 
Maryanne Stroud Gabbani
msgabbani@xxxxxxxxx

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