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Horse Behavior and Training

Gelded late and Stallion-like?

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Hi I have a thoroughbred who was free to a good home. I suspect he may have been gelded late, as he's very well-built, behaves like a stallion around the mares, hates to be separated from the mares, and shows an inclination to suddenly rear when being led, and try and run back to them. (Even if a mare is in the adjacent paddock over the fence).
Is it better to keep him separated from mares altogether? The dually halter has been helping a lot with the rearing problem. I was told the person who had him a couple of owners back was yanking on his halter a lot. He hates the pressure on the halter on the back of his head and is a little bit head shy. The dually has been great for leading him because the pressure is on his nose instead of behind his ears. I have done one join up with him so far and he responded well. I haven't done anything further in my training with him yet. The rearing at first appeared unpredictable to me, and was a bit off-putting. I'm wondering if he was a stallion who developed a rearing problem and became difficult to handle and so then was gelded. Any advice please?

vicci - UK (North Wales)
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Hi - I'm interested in the fact that you "suspect" he has been gelded late - can you not ask his previous owners when he was gelded? Can you tell us a bit more so that we can give a more considered answer. How old is he, how long have you had him, how long had the last people had him, was he ever raced (being a thoroughbred) etc etc.
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Anything that is "free to a good home" must set off alarm bells - noone gives away a valuable and well behaved horse :-) I am sensing that this guy has not been treated that well by someone along the way and it is great that he has found someone who wants to do right by him.
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Rearing is very dangerous and while it can seem unpredictable it won't be - horses never do anything without a reason, it's a matter of getting under his skin and seeing what's happening. Looking forward to hearing more about him so that we can all support you

vicci - UK (North Wales)
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Forgot to say.....great that the Join Up went well, and great start with the Dually, just stay with that for now and take it steady :-)

JoHewittVINTA
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Hi, it's me again. Well done you. I agree with Vicci, a freebie rings warning bells - I have one, Max. Max is fabulous. The incredible bucking pony. Well he only ever bucked with me aboard once & my reaction was to stand in the stirrups, leave the reins down & my legs wide of his sides. He landed, turned his head back to look at me & was confused. He'd been whipped to get canter ( I think ) - lead rein pony so never ridden by rider. I don't use a whip so he has no problem with me, even though he's 12 hands & I'm 11 stone. Do up to about 6 join ups to get your communication really solid. Make sure your 'picnic' responses are really instant & fair & you'll see some fantastic improvements in this fella. Yeah, possibly get him some geldings to befriend. Lots of luck. Cheers, Jo.

Kathryn in NZ
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Hi Vicki and Jo, thank you for your comments. Yes nearly all of my horses that I own have been free to a good home and all have come with issues. I'm happy to be taking a journey with each one to make life better for them. I don't know who his first owner was and it's possible he's had a string of owners. The last lady who he came from gave me very little information. I didn't meet her I just spoke over the phone and she put the horse on the transport and I received him without viewing him first, as he was coming from quite far away. She said she was getting rid of horses because in winter her property would flood and she was tired of pulling horses out of the floods. :) The only comment she made was the lady that brought him to her was yanking not very nicely on his head. I'm not too worried about finding out his past, because I'm happy to take each horse as it comes and work with what it's telling me. So when I say I 'suspect' it's because I'm evaluating who he is and how he's behaving. My very first horse, an appaloosa who I got when I was twelve and had for sixteen years was also a horse who had been intended for breeding and then because of a colour gene issue which showed up in his dam, was later gelded. He displayed stallion-like traits a lot like this thoroughbred is showing. This thoroughbred is sixteen. I've had him probably about a year now. I don't know if he's ever raced. Yes at first the rearing seemed out of the blue and unpredictable, but now I've figured out it's because he's lost sight of the mares or they are too far away for his liking. An example of his behaviour is this: I had him in a paddock with my two mares and in the neighbour's property there was a mare over the fence. I led my mares away to another paddock and put them in there, he partially followed wanting to be with them but then ran back to the other mare at the fence. He was acting torn between being with my mares and the other mare. I caught him and led him with the dually, which helped stop the rearing but he did try it, and put him in with my mares. He spent the time walking the fenceline wanting to get back to the other one. It was clear to me he considered all the mares his 'herd'. Another example I was trimming his hooves in the paddock with the mares nearby and he was standing calm and relaxed for ages. My husband was holding him for me as I don't trim with the horse tied up. We'd been like that for ages, (I'm slow at trimming as I just did a course in it this year and started doing my own horses), then out of the blue the horse reared right up above my husband (hubby's new to handling horses and nearly had a heart attack to see this horse rise way above him!) and the horse tore away and rushed down the paddock. I realised it was because the mares had gradually moved further away in the pasture until the thoroughbred wasn't happy with it anymore and wanted to be close to them. Since then we've been more aware of what is going on in his head, realising he's very possesive of the mares. When I did join up with him, the mares were close by in the stock yards, so he wasn't worried about it at that time. I've realised the rearing coincides with him not being able to see the mares. So I'm thinking I need to treat him like a stallion, and yes as you say Jo, give him a gelding pal instead. I could try moving him away from all the mares perhaps. But that is hard to do because I have neighbours' horses on two boundary fences of the property. Yes I also sense that he hasn't been treated well and that someone has definitely hurt him around the top of his head. He often reacts to my hand moving up towards that area. But I'll keep persevering with Join up and building trust and letting the dually correct his rearing each time. If I get him less enthusiastic about mares hopefully he will begin to forget about rearing. :)

Kathryn in NZ
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Just to clarify, I wasn't holding a hoof at the time the horse reared above my husband. :) I was standing a few feet away at that moment. The rearing had nothing to do with the trimming. :)

Mel - Ramsgate UK
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Aotearoa I would say he suffering with separation anxiety more than the fact he was cut late. If he's been passed around because he's a bit more difficult to handle, then he's met lots of friends and been removed from them.
I would consider doing some separation anxiety work with him first, which can take time..
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For trimming his feet, can you not do this in the field or just outside the gate so he can still see the mares? Well done for doing it yourself!! I started barefoot trimming mine after watching the uni vidoes on Ada Gates the farrier and have never looked back. Saves me a fortune and unlike when I've used farriers, I've never had a cause for lameness since I've started it myself.
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This is how I handle herd separation issues, the little mare (Dakota) in this blog was one of our newbies we purchased as a small riding pony, who was glued to her companion horse. http://melaniehetfield-equineservices.com/2015/01/10/horse-separation-anxiety-why-does-my-horse-get-stressed-leaving-the-herd/

Dakota now has had a foal, age 6 months and from very early on was happy for me to take the foal right away from her, knowing I'm bringing her back.
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A question when he rears and you say the Dually controls it better for you, can you explain what you mean and what you actually do with the dually to control the rear and what you do afterwards please so we can see if there is more you could be doing to help retrain him.

Mel
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vicci - UK (North Wales)
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Lovely that you give these unwanted horses a second chance :-)
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I agree with you in that as you have no history you have to 'go with what you've got in front of you' but I think Mel makes a good point, it could just as well be separation anxiety. It would be interesting to see what he is like with geldings and then what happens if you take him away form them.

Kathryn in NZ
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Hi everyone,

My latest events:

I separated the stallion-like gelding (his name is Kapiti) from the mares. There was just our long driveway separating his paddock from theirs. He spent the time standing at the fenceline watching them in a very concerned manner. On another fenceline he had direct contact with two little ponies, but he was most concerned about watching his two big mares. Then I moved him into the next paddock behind his, all by himself. So that meant there was a paddock and our driveway separating him from the mares. He was still close to the ponies though, his and theirs meeting at a corner.
He spent most of the time standing at the gate trying to see the big mares.
Then yesterday I had two lovely, sweet-natured and quiet-to-handle geldings arrive. They are Victor and Archer. They are 16hh - a bit taller than Kapiti but they are of a lean-build and he is very solid.
I put them in the paddock between Kapiti and the driveway, so they were closer to the mares than he was. He grunted and squealed at them when meeting them over the gate.
Then this morning I decided to see if he would accept them as companions. So I allowed him to enter their paddock. I also put some hay in for them - three separate mounds of hay all very far apart. Kapiti wasn't interested in becoming pals with the new geldings. Still all he can think about is the 2 mares across the driveway. The geldings were being very friendly and gentle to him and were only really interested in eating their hay. But Kapiti drove them off all three mounds of hay by running past backwards and forwards - and he kicked both geldings with both back hooves. The poor sweet new boys ended up just standing away from him and the hay while he owned it all. He is very dominant. I ended up separating him from the geldings for their sake. My children were upset to see our new sweetheart horses being so roughly treated by bossy Kapiti.

I'm still thinking it's less likely to be separation anxiety and way more likely that Kapiti is a horse who was most likely kept for a while as a stallion. He possibly wasn't handled well and developed a rearing problem and so was gelded to see if it would make him calmer. It hasn't helped enough, it appears, and he is still very stallion-minded, in my opinion. He was probably passed on through owners and now I have this horse who many wouldn't want to be bothered with. It's not surprising he was free to a good home.

I'm thinking the best way I can give him a good home here with me is to find out more about stallion-care and what is the best way to meet his needs.

So far I've seen he's happiest when with my two mares. One of them isn't in use at the moment so I'm thinking he and she can be paddock companions for each other. I don't really like the idea of him always being in a paddock on his own. But I'm aware that stud farms often have their stallions in a paddock on their own - is this correct?

On a different topic - a question I'd like to ask Monty Roberts to clarify would be this: Monty mentions in his intro to the University that horses don't want violence as part of their lives - and I do understand where he's coming from with regards to how we treat them. But I'm wondering how is it then, that it's acceptable to the horse to be violent to each other? They definitely cause each other pain from time to time, with teeth or kicking - and it hurts and is effective because the horse on the receiving end of a threat will move out of the way as quickly as possible.
Hey I think maybe I've just answered my own question LOL - they use pain to teach avoidance or 'sending away' because that's what they want at least temporarily - and if we use pain on them we also will get avoidance - but unlike the horse that ISN'T what we want from them.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts. :)

Miriam (Holland&Germany)
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Hi Aotearoa,
For your own safety, that of your family, the horse and your herd: have the vet check if he's properly gelded! Some still have one testicle hidden and produce hormones, that make them behave like a stallion.With bloodcheck and palpating your vet should be able to tell you if this horse is a real gelding.
Handling stallions, and those that behave like one, are not everybody's task.
We risk feeling threatened by their behavior and out of fear getting into a fightsituation with the horse, which the horse will always win.
You answered your own question above, but reading it, I realised that violence is around the corner, if you don't know how to handle his hormonal behavior.
If you don't feel safe, search for someone who can handle stallions, a very experienced horsehandler, with violencefree trainingmethods and let them teach you how to handle with respect and consequence your handful of a horse.
I hope you don't feel offended by what I wrote, but we can only train when we feel in the safest possible situation, here's another example of adrenalin-up/learning-down.
Please let us know how things go!
Miriam

Kathryn in NZ
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Thanks, Miriam. I appreciate your feedback. It sounds spot-on to me. :) :)

vicci - UK (North Wales)
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I love the way you worked through this and how you shared the process of reaching your own answer. It would have been so easy to just delete it once you realised but sharing it with us means learning for all of us and that can only be good :-)
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To add to your insight (which I found very useful) ...while Monty encourages us to share the horses communication the horse still knows we are not horses! So any sign of aggression from us would confirm the horses' view that we are a predatory species and have deceived it in our attempt to cross the communication gulf using trust and shared understanding.

vicci - UK (North Wales)
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Oh...and forgot to add, great advice from Miriam..he may be a rig!

Kathryn in NZ
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Thanks Vicci :) Yes I've just googled and done some reading on handling stallions, their behaviours, and also info from people who have had rigs. There was an interesting paragraph by someone who's gelding acted like a stallion but who tested normal as a gelding. But he'd been allowed to be a stallion until about six or seven years old. So his behaviour was a learned behaviour and not caused by hormones.
I've thought it through and considered my personal history with Kapiti's behaviour so far, and drawn some conclusions to form a plan for his future care:

1. For Kapiti to be truely happy and satisfied - from his point of view - he will be glad to be back with the two mares as before. He's not hurt them or been too aggressive with them and they are quite bonded to him too. He's not acted aggressive or worried about me when I approach them in the pasture. When his little herd is close together he's happy and satisfied.

2. Because I received a good join up with him while the mares were close by beside the round pen in the stock yards, and he wasn't distressed in that situation, I think that will be the best set up for him to learn in. So I'd like to set it up for him that way again the next time and continue with join up. Also begin work with some decent and more thorough dually halter training, teaching him to lead better and to not want to rear, giving more respect to the halter and to me as the leader.

3. Take one mare away from him at a time and do it regularly and get him used to the idea that they will leave him for a while and come back safely, so that he's not fretting about where they've gone. Hopefully over time he will be more relaxed with it. I can only try this to see if it works.

From reading about the stallions I now understand him better that he's never been trying to hurt me when rearing, but his priority is being near his mares.

We have more trust-building to work on as well which will take time.

In further response to Miriam - Even if he did test result as a rig by a vet, unfortunately it's not the right time for me at this point to go down a path of more vet bills. I've just been through a sad and disappointing ordeal with the vet hospital who operated on a lovely gelding of mine for a bladder stone and he died after the operation the next morning at the hospital - so I now am missing him :( :( :( and having to pay a large vet bill.

I have fully concluded through everyone's helpful comments and what I've been researching today, that Kapiti is acting like a rig and therefore needs to be treated as one. I'm not afraid of working with him - especially since I'm using the best methods supplied by the uni and Monty's literature etc. I've been learning and practicing these methods for some time now and getting better at it. I don't need to put myself in any unsafe situations with him and will make sure that I don't, especially now that I understand him better. :) :)

Thanks everyone. :) I'll update again when we've made some more progress. Often I find I have to just keep taking steps forward and learning from each step as I go. Each horse is an individual journey. :)

Miriam (Holland&Germany)
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Hi Aotearoa,
I'm so sorry to read about your other gelding! Losing a horse this way is really bitter!
Keeping Kapiti away from his little herd will have caused him distress, having two new gelding around might have made it even worse. I think you solved that for now in a satisfying way.
Keep learning and sharing with us as you go!
Miriam

Mel - Ramsgate UK
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Our BamBam was underdeveloped and was passported a gelding, it wasn't until spring came after we got him and his reaction to the mares in heat, that we got the vet to confirm he wasn't gelded, but so tiny you would have thought he was. So which ever vet passported him off as gelded didn't see.
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Aotearoa - keep safe and do some practice with your breathing so you can keep this nice and slow when handling him.
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Re herd violence and putting new horses together as a herd. Horses go through the same process of Join up when a new horse is added to the herd, the more horses there are in the herd the more aggressive they can become to the newbie. Please have a look at my video of herd introduction, you'll see all the process as a new foal is added to a herd. Small herd. It can take between 3-7 weeks for a newbie to be accepted fully within a herd of more than 2, communication has to be established and who really is leading. When food comes into the equation you can really see who is hierarchy and they will be first to the food and protect their food, even with 3 separate piles of hay Kapiti showed his dominance as leader.
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for herd intergration, first I become the herd leader of the main herd the newbie is going to be introduced to. then I become leader of the new newbie, once both have understood my leadership, I take the newbie into the main herd and I become the main one keeping the newbie on lead rope/dually, and the others are not allowed near until they listen to what I'm asking. Then they are introduced for a few moments, then the main herd is sent away from me and the newbie, this goes on for about an hour before I can let the newbie off the dually and they stay near me but the herd keep away. then the newbie is taken out of the field again. this goes on daily until the normal hierarchy of the main herd starts to ask me to come close and so join up begins until I can leave the herd and they communicate on a less aggressive level.
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When I first work with a herd and the owner doesn't know who is hierarchy, I put one food bucket down and you soon find out who is :D
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Horses never use violence to each other without some form of warning before hand, an ear movement, flick of the eyes and head, swish of the tail and even leaning the body slightly to apply pressure. Only once all these small communications have not been listened to will the hierarchy apply more pressure, resulting in biting and kicking if they lower one is refusing to listen. All the way through the herd there will be a line of hierarchy, in our herd of 6, well we'll say 5 as the foal doesn't count yet, the Hierarchy is Pye first, BamBam, Dakota, Barney our Shetland over our Sonny the Gypsy Cob, which is quite funny to watch when you look at the size difference. When it comes to food, it has to be fed in that order else there are fights.
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It is only humans that give no warning or use violence without cause, in a more animalistic way that the animals do.
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Keep us updated, we all want to know how you get on! ;)

xx