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Re: [RC] Conditioning an older horse??? - heidiBut you have to be careful with older stallions, as they can be very unpredictable. We were very careful to introduce him to camping etc in small steps (the first one being not to fight the horse in the window tied to the trailer!) and make very sure he was PERFECT around other horses. Actually, I've found older stallions to be some of the most predictable horses I've ever worked with. They are all individuals, so what you "predict" will vary from horse to horse--but they tend to be very true to their own personalities. We've had diametrically opposite experiences (although entirely successful) with different older stallions, but both extremes were entirely predictable based upon what we knew of the horses from handling them at home. We got Aur Bold Tribute at age 15, and he had done nothing for 8 years but stand in a box stall and come out to breed mares. He is also an effervescent character--honest, but very mercurial. As a result, he thought that was why he went anywhere, and he was quite predictable--the first few outings with him were noisy and a handful, but it took GETTING him out to conquer the problem. He was good for the three years that we campaigned him but now that he only gets out intermittently again, he can revert to that behavior. It is "him" and is entirely predictable, even though it is not desirable and means having to work through it and reprimand him until he remembers that we don't tolerate this nonsense. Likewise, when camping with Bo, we have to make sure he is out on the edge of things, away from the commotion, and on the far side of the trailer. We got Don Cesar when he was 24. He is an altogether different personality, and takes everything in stride. I doubt that he had ever camped out tied to a trailer in his life, although he was ridden and shown some as a MUCH younger horse. We took him last year at age 28 to the Idaho All-Arabian Country Classic horse show, and camped out just like we do at rides instead of paying the exorbitant rate for stalls. We had two geldings in a portable corral off of one side of the trailer, and Don Cesar was tied to the other side. He was a quiet gentleman the entire weekend and really enjoyed the entire experience--he thought the whole thing was held just for people to come admire him. We had people next to us with horses tied practically tail-to-tail to him, coming and going constantly as they went to and from different classes, and I never heard a peep out of him. He trekked happily off to place in both of his ridden classes (I had been on him ONCE prior to this trip, and otherwise he had not even been ridden in well over a decade) and to win all three of his in-hand classes, including a VERY competitive Sport Horse In Hand class (purebred stallions of all ages) in which I'm happy to say he likely enhanced his score by being by far the most consistent and best-behaved fellow there. Predictable? Absolutely. That sort of behavior is him, no matter the circumstances. (He's the kind of guy that if I am breeding by myself, I can stop and hang his leadrope over my arm while I fix a tail wrap on a mare--something I wouldn't try with Bo in a million years! With Bo, I'd have to go waltzing off to somewhere else with him, tie him up, remedy the problem, and start over again.) We currently stand 6 stallions that are in their 20's. Each is different, and I can tell you just about to the letter what each one is apt to do when you walk in with a halter, whether it be for breeding or for any other sort of situation. The old ones are a treat, even if they are on the difficult side, because one DOES know what to expect from them--it is the younguns who will surprise you--the ones who are still figuring out who they are with all that testosterone... Bottom line--if you know your stallion well, you should be able to predict his behavior quite accurately. The problem is being honest in your predictions--they need to be based on who he is, not on what you hope he might be. :-) And if you predict that he will be a handful, then you obviously need to do a lot more homework than if he is a steady and unflappable fellow. Heidi =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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