A Gelding And Track Work To The Derby
I'm just back in my office from the farm where this morning my 13 year old retired horse Groovin'Wind was gelded. Major surgery at this age. Gelding is never a pleasant idea for me, and I generally avoided this over the years with about 12 or 13 horses. With Wind for the first time in my 20 years suddenly we had a situation where the behavior of the horse necessitated the gelding. For his first 12 years Wind was the proverbial sweet heart, as most of them are, but Wind of late handled his new position as herd leader very questionably, and hence the operation. A bit traumatic for me with this old and favored horse but also likely for his long term good at this point of his life.
Just a short word about colts, horses, stallions. There are so many myths that attach. Yes, you can keep them together in the same pasture. I've had up to seven at one time. You can also keep mares in the same pasture with the seven stallions. We've done it. Hilarious situation where the head honcho is at one end of the field with his mares, with the other six at the other end, and the two groups spend the day in constant staredown watching each other's every move. There's never a dull moment around a bunch of stallions; maybe a little too much excitement for many horse people. But, I'd say in 20 years of owing numerous full horses I've seen maybe exactly two serious fights. Lot's of constant squabbling of course, but mostly they behave as horses regardless of their sex.
Recently I learned with Wind they can get out of control. Was it age, the situation 3 being a bad number for a herd, or the fact that Wind has never been the brightest bulb out there in the pasture and just handled his duties poorly? Interesting that I've learned something new again after all these years.
The Derby coverage gets better every year, and I'm in process of putting together all the works and gallops, spacing, distance, time, to see if we may glean anything from this in terms of performance and injury in the Derby. That'll be coming in the next posts.
Training: My horses have been off two days due to bad weather. We'll start up tonight though it's threatening to rain yet again.
Just a short word about colts, horses, stallions. There are so many myths that attach. Yes, you can keep them together in the same pasture. I've had up to seven at one time. You can also keep mares in the same pasture with the seven stallions. We've done it. Hilarious situation where the head honcho is at one end of the field with his mares, with the other six at the other end, and the two groups spend the day in constant staredown watching each other's every move. There's never a dull moment around a bunch of stallions; maybe a little too much excitement for many horse people. But, I'd say in 20 years of owing numerous full horses I've seen maybe exactly two serious fights. Lot's of constant squabbling of course, but mostly they behave as horses regardless of their sex.
Recently I learned with Wind they can get out of control. Was it age, the situation 3 being a bad number for a herd, or the fact that Wind has never been the brightest bulb out there in the pasture and just handled his duties poorly? Interesting that I've learned something new again after all these years.
The Derby coverage gets better every year, and I'm in process of putting together all the works and gallops, spacing, distance, time, to see if we may glean anything from this in terms of performance and injury in the Derby. That'll be coming in the next posts.
Training: My horses have been off two days due to bad weather. We'll start up tonight though it's threatening to rain yet again.
posted by rather rapid at
11:25 AM
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