Too much stallion in your gelding?

My Bobby was a rig AND he was gelded properly.  My best friend bred him, she was British Horse Society trained and checked that both testicles were out.  In our early days when we were out on a group ride, he scared me the crap out of me when he made a sudden lurch towards a mare in season with the aim of mounting her.  I felt like I needed eyes in the back of my head and had to spend the whole ride keeping him away.  Later on I observed him in the paddock actually mating with a willing mare in season – but it didn’t make sense because he was properly gelded.   I asked my very good equine vet about his behavior.

The vet explained that the expression “cut proud” (which is a term often used to describe a gelding who behaves like this) usually doesn’t have anything at all to do with the way the horse was gelded.  he explained that there’s three kinds of rig:

•  There’s the horse that wasn’t gelded properly – which this vet explained to me is MUCH rarer than you’d think, because a vet knows if they’ve left a testicle behind and in Bobby’s case I know that wasn’t the case.
•  The second kind of rig is learned behavior – when a horse is gelded late, has all his instincts and has learned how to use them. The vet told me you could put them into a paddock full of pregnant mares and they would soon let him know that behavior was unacceptable, probably by kicking the crap out of him.  A friend had a herd of pregnant Clydesdales that we put him in with and they let him know that he shouldn’t even approach without their permission – and they didn’t give it.  It didn’t change anything with Bobby.
• The third type of rig is what Bobby turned out to be.  When they are in utero, some of their testosterone making cells gravitate to other glands.  This type of rig is most commonly the one that’s most commonly called “cut proud” – the testicles are gone but they still have the testosterone and stallion behavior that goes with it.  In Bobby’s case the testosterone was in the adrenal glands, so when fear or excitement came up, up came the stallion. The vet said that even though he was gelded properly, he had more testosterone than most serving stallions.

I came across a homeopath who fixed the rig in Bobby with a homeopathic remedy called Tarantula. (Yeah a remedy made from the spider). And yes it fixed it.  No more stallion behavior.  The effectiveness of this was one of the experiences that prompted me to become a kinesiologist and learn homeopathy too. 

In his later years, Bobby communicated his sadness at losing his inner stallion.  With the deep connection and Feel for our horse that he’d taught me, I had the communication skills to deal with a stallion and was no longer afraid of them, so I honored his request and reversed the procedure.

Whether it’s stallions, geldings or mares, dominance doesn’t bring me the stuff of MY dreams.

Stallions (and by extension rigs) can be dangerous when you’re using dominant training methods, which includes what we loosely call natural horsemanship – the kind that makes a horse do what you want.  I’m going to bite the bullet here folks and say that if we’re using words like “cause the horse to want to do what you want” we ARE making the horse do what we want.  It’s a dominant form of leadership.  I used that type of training for a long time and it cost Bobby and I our relationship.  Getting it back two years later was only thanks to him and his courage to hold out for everything he knew we could be together, no thanks to me.  (That story is on Bobby’s Diaries – Straight from the Horse’s Mouth to You.)

And stallions do not deal well with anything that smacks of dominance.  It makes sense really – their leadership of a herd depends on their natural instincts to NOT be dominated. 

I’m not anti-dominance in my own work with horses in the right circumstances – maybe a safety situation – but dominance does not bring the kind of relationship with a horse that I’m looking for.  And it sure as heck doesn’t produce the kind of poetry with a horse that I dreamed of and yearned for.  The force, the “make”, produces a tension and sometimes even a sadness in the horse that gets in the way of those dreams.

I had the confidence to eventually reverse Bobby’s homeopathic medicines that  “took the stallion away” because the deep connection and communication work (what I call Feel for your horse) that Bobby himself opened up in me – changed everything.  I was no longer afraid or frustrated.  I no longer needed to dominate him to feel safe.  My “training” techniques became gently effective.  I’m laughing writing this – the quote marks around the word training are because it’s certainly not training in the traditional sense of MAKING a horse do what you want. 

And yet you get what you want with the gentle effectiveness of Feel for your horse – you get even more than you think you want – with a horse who actively co-operates with you in the learning of it together.  Now THAT’s poetry AND that’s satisfying to my soul.

Stallions and rigs – I wouldn’t recommend a novice horse person getting either, because there’s a certain level of skill necessary, but…

But if you love a rig already, I’m thinking you’ll want the skills to be confident with them.

There’s no point in beating around the bush with this issue.  If you love a rig, then you want some skills.  Gentle skills – world class skills – that have Feel for your horse at their foundation.  And that’s going to take the Fast Track to Brilliant Riding program or the Ease and Grace program – either privately or in a small group to reduce the cost.  I don’t know of anyone in the world who can teach Feel for your horse as simply and effectively as we do here. You can check those programs out here.

Our Training Programs – Happiness, Healing and Horses

I know these days, that most everything happens for a reason. What if solving this problem, getting the skills to have the kind of communication I had with Bobby (or Bobby had with me lol!) gave you the skills, the confidence, the knowhow and deep soul connection to your horse that brought an even bigger gift into your life? It’s funny what a small shift in perspective can achieve.

Today’s photo:   Bobby the Master Teacher at work with his brother Monty at a clinic at our place.