The differentiation between herd behavior and sexual driven behavior in stallion/gelding is an important nuance. Geldings without their sex hormones are still horses, not robots (as some would prefer it seems after looking at ISO ads for equines that specify geldings only and a list of attributes that seems more like a car than a horse). My favorite sentence is “He doesn’t know he’s a gelding.” Retrospectively this is totally obvious and I have never thought of it in this way before. There are times I think there is great progress being made in the education of modern horse riders - other times not. Many modern equestrian are horse riders not and necessarily horse people (or maybe even animal people) with horsemanship gained from growing up riding and taking care of their animals (whole horse observation, care, awareness of wellbeing). Horsemanship has been slipping in recent years and articles like this are super for those learning as well as for lifelong equestrians.
Hi Julia, thank you for this comment! I completely agree that there is a tendency to view horses - and particularly geldings - as input-output 'robots' that are supposed to just follow pre-programmed commands. But they are individuals, with individual personalities and experiences (and motivations), that will require a combination of species-specific and individual approaches. I think we humans like the idea of simple one-size-fits-all solutions to behavioural problems, and therefore have taken castration to be more than just a means of reproductive control to some sort of guarantee of 'good' and 'safe' and 'compliant' behaviour. It kind of goes hand in hand with the idea that stallions are somehow inherently dangerous and difficult.
What a fascinating piece and it could not have come at a better time! I have a 20 month old colt who is about to be castrated and this helps me understand him so much better :) Thank you for this!
No, the mare is a rescue actually. There's a horrible wedding horse market in India and we got her out of that and she was already when she came to us.
The differentiation between herd behavior and sexual driven behavior in stallion/gelding is an important nuance. Geldings without their sex hormones are still horses, not robots (as some would prefer it seems after looking at ISO ads for equines that specify geldings only and a list of attributes that seems more like a car than a horse). My favorite sentence is “He doesn’t know he’s a gelding.” Retrospectively this is totally obvious and I have never thought of it in this way before. There are times I think there is great progress being made in the education of modern horse riders - other times not. Many modern equestrian are horse riders not and necessarily horse people (or maybe even animal people) with horsemanship gained from growing up riding and taking care of their animals (whole horse observation, care, awareness of wellbeing). Horsemanship has been slipping in recent years and articles like this are super for those learning as well as for lifelong equestrians.
Hi Julia, thank you for this comment! I completely agree that there is a tendency to view horses - and particularly geldings - as input-output 'robots' that are supposed to just follow pre-programmed commands. But they are individuals, with individual personalities and experiences (and motivations), that will require a combination of species-specific and individual approaches. I think we humans like the idea of simple one-size-fits-all solutions to behavioural problems, and therefore have taken castration to be more than just a means of reproductive control to some sort of guarantee of 'good' and 'safe' and 'compliant' behaviour. It kind of goes hand in hand with the idea that stallions are somehow inherently dangerous and difficult.
Thanks for this Renate, very enlightening for us gelding-owners (and horse people in general)❤️
Thank you, glad you liked it! :)
What a fascinating piece and it could not have come at a better time! I have a 20 month old colt who is about to be castrated and this helps me understand him so much better :) Thank you for this!
Oh, that's great timing indeed! Glad you liked the article. Did you breed him yourself?
No, the mare is a rescue actually. There's a horrible wedding horse market in India and we got her out of that and she was already when she came to us.