>Anyway what happens if a stallion's
rider is dumped and the horse is running free during a ride. How does one train
a stallion to forgo the urges when that happens.
At the risk of sounding facetious, does your mother
still follow you around and tell you when to "forego urges"?
Or did she educate you well enough when she had you in her clutches that
you can now come to a few conclusions about public etiquette on your
own? Having been dumped by one of my stallions (on a couple of different
occasions) and having had another of my stallions dump a rider, what DID happen
with both was that they made a circuit around in glee (just like any
other loose horse) and returned either to their camp or to their downed
rider, or were uneventfully caught and returned by other riders, without
incident. How do you "train" for that? By miles and miles of
reinforcing that work is not the time or the place. And furthermore, they
are not "naked"--they are still saddled and ready for work. Home
management helps as well--at our place, breeding only occurs in ONE place, we
NEVER haul somewhere else to breed, and ANY time we tack up or load up, it is to
go to work, not to go to mares. Period. Furthermore, our stallions
are raised either in with other horses who boss them, or next to other
horses, so that being nose to nose with or loose with other horses does not
signal a "hormonal episode" either. And that becomes a lifelong
habit.
