I was happy to see the previous discussions for something
thinking of competing a stallion because we are preparing to do the same
thing. We have owned him for 3 years and he is very easy to breed and a
total sweetheart in the barn. He had done one other carefully managed 25 (arrived
morning of the ride, rode with horses he knew) a few years ago and we have
since done a lot of training work with him as well.
He’s gone out in groups as big as 6, but of course the
whole group knew he was a stallion and usually kept their distance. One
lady lets her horse go where he wants and I have purposefully done planned
space intrusions, so we have not entirely ridden him in a bubble. We’ve
pushed grazing and drinking closer as well. He is also not a big guy and
pretty easy to manhandle even when he’s ready to breed. We also use
him for teasing, so he is well behaved with getting excited and then being
told, so sad, not today.
Our last ride, we really pushed him because I was riding a
mare in heat and this has been a first. He figured this out in the
trailer of course and was a little rude tied on the same side, but nothing
unreasonable. I rode her as close to him as I always do with no
problems. We stopped for a grass break and pushed things a little further
– he got to sniff where she’d peed. It was not difficult to
ask him to behave, but he did drop and wasn’t in any hurry to put himself
away and while he remained dropped he was super sensitive to her being
close. Still not behaving bad, but had to be repeatedly reminded to think
forward. I backed the mare way off and we eventually were able to get
back to normal spacing (still closer than anyone should travel behind a
stallion on a ride though other than crap happens of course).
So my question is this – should he get a whiff of a
mare in heat at a vet check or wherever and decide to drop, what do you
do? Obviously we’d move him away if he wasn’t behaving well,
and we tried some circling to get his mind off things which didn’t do
much. I would not whack him on the penis as someone else saw someone
doing, but if he’s behaving, should we ignore it or try to more actively
get his mind back where it belongs?
And when riding – is it gonna hurt him to trot along
swinging from side to side? He didn’t seem to mind too much but it
sure didn’t look comfortable. But continuing on and getting back to
the real job at hand is what helped the most as well.
Or should we decide that if he drops when he’s not
supposed to that he is not ready for an endurance ride? I don’t
know how much more we can educate him without pushing the envelope and
obviously we could be in for a surprise. But this guy has been a very
easy to handle stallion and my husband is extremely confident in his ability to
deal with him and would pull or get completely out of the path of other horses
as needed.
More advice appreciated!
Marlene
Marlene
Moss
www.LosPinos-CO.com
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