Arguments for NOT gelding

xxlindeyxx said:
Stallions are normally judged on their necks and conformation. A stallion who is superb quality should have a nice round cresty neck. The rounder/bigger/crestier the neck is, the better the stallion. IM not sure, and im sorry if this is rude but im being honestm i think this horse should be castrated.
He is lovely though:)
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You would never expect a 15 month old to have a "nice round cresty neck", they are babies for a reason. You also cannot judge conformation from either of those photographs as they are a bit blurry and he is moving. It is also not true that "the rounder/bigger/crestier the neck is the better the stallion" - that would cancel out a lot of the competition stallions. There are also a hell of a lot of more modern-type lighter build stallions out there now.

I would rather see photographs of him - standing still if possible - as a 3 day old and a 3 month old...that will give you much more of an idea of him. 15 month olds are meant to be gangly and all over the place.

OP who handles him when you are at University? If it is your dad, is he worried about doing so?
 
FreddiesGal said:
Can't quote as on phone but :

"My own stallion often has mares living with him, or youngsters. Yes, he has his own paddock, with a walkway between the next paddock -which also has a stallion in it - but both stallions can see the entire yard and every horse on the place."

IMO there is a large, large difference between two horses being able to see each other, and two horses that can have a canter around together, groom each other, and swish the flies off one another. I see seperating horses so they can see each other but not touch each other a bit like waving sweets in front of a child but not letting him have any.
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I do agree to an extent, all of my other horses live together, my colt is kept as Enfys says, in a large field, right next to other horses and he is as good as gold, when not eating he chats away and flirts with them. However, I would say that on the last livery yard I was on there were several horses in paddocks on their own as that is how their owners wanted it. They were both mares and geldings, so they do not always get to live in herds either. I think as long as a horse is happy and content that should be fine. If ever I thought my boy was miserable I would geld him.
 
I have a 7yo warmbloodX that wasnt gelded until almost 5, he is quiet as anything as he was kept away from mares and is physically very mature for his age considering his warmblood parentage, and the fact that he was only broken in this year...
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this is him ^^ 8-)
Personally, if its youre own land and he is handlable, leave him. they do work out better for it, however, breeding from him is an entirely different kettle of fish, and needs to be given much thought.
Hope youre dad can understand- show him pics of my boy if you like :)
 
Mine was gelded in feb, apparently. He has either been used or taught as he mounts anything you lead him to. He can be a handful to be around but most of the time is fine. He only has one castration scar as is having blood tests run as we speak!

He looks great for it though! Cresty and mature! Lucky for me I have my own place so his problem behaviour of jumping out to harass the mares can be controlled.

as a 3 year old
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as a 4 year old
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He has grown since the first pic and is now filling out again :)

This is him :) I know zargons horse too, he is a total sweetie and easy to do. Gelding late causes little issues imo.

I would get him graded and go from there......

your horse looks lovely, stallion or gelding. What do you plan on doing with him?
 
FreddiesGal said:
"Yes, he has his own paddock, with a walkway between the next paddock" This suggests that he is kept on his own in his own paddock?
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sometimes..
and sometimes he is out with the youngsters and sometimes he is out with the mares :). Sooo many horses are kept in individual paddocks these days anyway I wouldn't think it a reason to have to geld at his current age.
 
OP, I dont really know what other arguements / reasons you want to NOT geld him. The only reasons not to are 1) because you want him to fill out properly and 2) because you want to breed from him. There are no other reasons to keep a horse entire I dont think?

If the horse is yours then you do with it what you want. Its nothing to do with your dad.

Personally I would not keep a horse entire because it means you'll have to keep him on his own / away from mares which I think is always a shame. I think horses always need company and find it sad when they cant have it. I also think its a bit of a shame that he'll have all that testosterone coursing through him all the time, probably rather frustrating for him!
 
Just a quick update for everyone...

By the way thank you for all the posts, I never imagined to have so much support and opinions all are read, Id love to comment back to everyone.

Any-hows, brought him up from field down the road, not one youngster fit we had several cars pass - only 1 slowed down, I think with it being bank holiday weekend and living in an attractive location we get all the city drivers who have no idea out and about down the country lanes!

Dad was standing outside the farm doing farmer stuff, as we approached the farm 2 huge dumper trucks were heading straight towards us, with no driveways of gateways I popped him on the verge and did as much reassuring as I could. Trucks came past he didnt blink an eyelid!! On top of that dad saw it all. I then continued to walk towards the farm where the grainstore was loudly buzzing away, not a look, dad was standing by the tractor with the generator running on it, we stopped so I could bask slightly on glorification of how wonderful the boy had been. Then continued to walk round the back of the farm, past the sucker-blower (a noisy contraption to move corn) to the yard where he is chilling eating haylage, drying off after the recent downpour and waiting for me 'diluteherd scissor hands' to preen him ready for our first show tomorrow :)

If that is not a chilled out, relax colt then I do not know what he expects - even my 8yo mare who has been on the farm all her life still wont walk past the grain store when its on without some sort of toys out the pram moment!

Ive attached a video - terrible quality, you do get periods of just grass. If you are looking for his trot he gives a nice display towards the end of the video.

Also feel free to take a stab at what breeds he has in his bloodlines - his sire has a bit of a selection, its his dam that holds all the top bloodlines :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z57uKKFIQdA&feature=youtu.be
 
diluteherd said:
Also feel free to take a stab at what breeds he has in his bloodlines - his sire has a bit of a selection, its his dam that holds all the top bloodlines :)
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That alone is probably good reason to geld him. No rush if you can cope with him entire but would you be wanting him entire if he was a bay?
 
wench said:
How old are you 8 or 18?

There are far too many horses being bred, have you got the next burghley winner on your hands? I think not.

You wait until he's three, and he's more than likely to think he's still got them and be a complete nuisance
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Why the hell do you need to be so rude. The op asked a very specific question. Only to be answered with unnecessary sarcasm.
Interesting choice of user name by the way.....
Humorous a girl or young woman (well lets strike that out shall we) or a prostitute ????
Op your horse thus you should do what your instincts tell you to do. Stand up to your dad tell him I am 25 its my horse and I shall manage him as I see fit.
 
Armas said:
Op your horse thus you should do what your instincts tell you to do. Stand up to your dad tell him I am 25 its my horse and I shall manage him as I see fit.
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And what does she do when her father, who is the land owner, says 'No entires on my land, you have till the end of the week to move your horses' ?
 
I managed to find several places where my youngster was accepted for what he was, it's high time there was a better understanding of Stallions and colts. Mares are entire, and can actually cause a lot more problems when they're in season.. even break through fencing to get to stallions.. and some mares have really stinking attitudes.. don't get me wrong, I've had a lovely mare in the past, but I've seen a darker side to mares too, so give me a gelding or stallion any day :)
 
I have two 18month old colts - both wellbred, good confo and move nicely, one 15.2 the other 15.1. They are both polite, easy to handle, go out in the field with all others (geldings, mixture of TB eventers and warmblood dressagers). They are kept in their place by my old eventer - the herd leader. Unless they start to get too opinionated they will be left till they are 3. If we believe they are any good we will get an expert to look at them and then get them graded if they believe they are any good.

If you have the land and he is well mannered they why not keep him entire until 3 - its breeding with horses with no breeding without any thought into what your wanting to achieve that is the problem, not someone just wanting to keep there colt entire until 3.
 
I think the best arguement for early gelding is that they recover quicker and suffer no set back. Our colt foals were cut whilst on their dams at around 8 months or so. #
I dont believe that by the time the gelding is 5 or 6 he is less muscled if cut early. Its all in the scholling once backed and ridden.
We have kept stallions ,[ graded - and believe theres no reason to ever keep an ungraded one , or use ungraded sires to breed from , but thats another subject] and would say that they take a lot of work and thought, no matter how good natured. [ we kept warmblood stallions with mares]
 
Armas said:
Why the hell do you need to be so rude. The op asked a very specific question. Only to be answered with unnecessary sarcasm.
Interesting choice of user name by the way.....
Humorous a girl or young woman (well lets strike that out shall we) or a prostitute ????.
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just charming.
accusing someone of being rude by being sarcastic while retaliating by suggesting her name implies she's a prostitute :confused:

its like witnessing a bar room brawl here sometimes.
you have to stand back incase someone tries to break a chair over your head!
 
lula said:
just charming.
accusing someone of being rude by being sarcastic while retaliating by suggesting her name implies she's a prostitute :confused:

its like witnessing a bar room brawl here sometimes.
you have to stand back incase someone tries to break a chair over your head!
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Would you prefer that I change the meaning of the word ? Perhaps this will enlighten you.

http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/wench?q=wench
 
s4sugar said:
That alone is probably good reason to geld him. No rush if you can cope with him entire but would you be wanting him entire if he was a bay?
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The 'other' breeds that are arab and thoroughbred go right back to his great, great, great, grandsire and dam. His sire, grand sire and great grand sire are hungarian warmblood.

I dont though see a problem with this? Surely having arab and thoroughbred qualities act in his favour??

Answer to the bay question.... I wouldn't have bought him if he was bay. Simples. If I had bought a bay with his qualities yes I would. But as my name suggests I love dilutes and that is what I buy - shallow as it may seem. I know what you may possibly be implying, there are a lot of people out there who just see for example spots on a horse and they just HAVE to breed from it for the pure purpose of producing spots without even considering the conformation and temperament factors. In this guys case I believe him to tick boxes with addition bonus tick of being dilute and carrying the creme gene.

I think though like many have said I will have him graded. At the moment though it all points to gelding at 3/rising4 . However it all depends on the grading, the passport - No one can predict peoples actions, it looks like the passport 'issue' is being sorted but I wont hold my breath and of course the main factor his temperament and behaviour.



I have a new question though - if at rising 4 he is still entire and performance wise he shows great potential at jumping, if I then geld him is there a chance that he may lose his jumping ability?

Im sure I have read/heard someone tell me about their stallion they then cut and the horse just lost his level of performance.
 
I think of it like this. If the land belongs to the father and the horse was bought by his money, directly or indirectly then if he feels to geld is right it's a no brainer. To have 5 horses housed is one doozey of a favour.

If the horses and where they are kept is paid for by OP then it is her choice. I might not agree with it in full but at I have not gained success enough to have 5 horses so what would I know?

Geld now or at 3 isn't life and death. An entire woth genes enough to be a cracking stallion will be a cracking gelding. A gelding without genes to thrive without nuts would not have made the grade for stallion. In the uk we breed almost any old mare so stallions hold (wrongly) our only hope in terms of the next generation. A good enough stallion will be a goodenough gelding, with peace I. A familt to boot.
 
Is his arab blood actual arab or shagya? I live in Hungary and the Shagya's are wonderful horses. There are quite a few nice Hungarian breeds and when I moved here I was really surprised by the quality of the horses.
 
Leaving a colt until three will not necessarily mean he will develop a crest or bulk out, i have an Arab that was gelded at thirteen, he isnt built like a stallion! (although he was very poor when we got him)
Also there is argument that gelding early will allow them to grow on better, less stress and hormones with no plums!!
 
Hollycatt said:
Is his arab blood actual arab or shagya? I live in Hungary and the Shagya's are wonderful horses. There are quite a few nice Hungarian breeds and when I moved here I was really surprised by the quality of the horses.
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Well it seems to be mix of arab and shagya arab - His great-great-great grandsire (so going right back to 1960) is Siglavy Gidran III who according to allbreedpedigree.com has shagya arab and arabian.

You can really see it come through in him though, he hasnt got the dish head of the arab but has a very pretty head on him -which whether Im seeing things or not, I believe has those sort of arab eye sockets and the high tail carriage.
 
lula said:
just charming.
accusing someone of being rude by being sarcastic while retaliating by suggesting her name implies she's a prostitute :confused:
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FionaM12 said:
Tbh Armas, I thought Wench's comments were rude too but I really can't see what the dictionary definition of her name has got to do with it! :confused:
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I was simply correcting Lula's assumption that I was implying Wench was a prostitute. Wench's user name possibly implies that. :rolleyes:
I was simply highlighting that fact with the aid of the dictionary definition.
Rude moi ??? Just responding in the same vain as Wench :p
 
I personally don't see the problem leaving him until he is 3? :confused:

It's not like your are saying that you are 100% breeding him, I'm assuming that you merely want to leave him and see how he matures before making any decisions?
The only conditions I'd place (if I were you) are:

-That he has full breeding history and register, there are more than enough unregistered horses going to market and personally I see breeding more unregistered stock as irresponsible. So as long as any of his foals could be registered with a breed registry then that's fine, otherwise they may face an uncertain future.
-That you can handle him (or are willing to get him the chop if he proves to be a little bit too much to handle once he becomes more sexually aware.)
-That he is graded, if he fails then get him gelded. Always breed for conformation over colour, a good horse is never a bad colour after all! Going through stallion gradings will give you an unbiased opinion as to your colts conformation which is a lot more than any of us could say by looking at one picture.

If all this is in place then why not use him as a stallion?

One thing you might need to take note of though is that most breeders (not all) tend to want stallions who have proved themselves in a discipline, either dressage, showjumping, eventing etc. If you don't plan to have him competing at a high standard then you will have to acknowledge this in your stud fees, after all why pay £500 for a stallion that has done nothing other than look pretty on a farm when you could get a stallion who has proven himself to be a talented horse?
After all, the whole point behind breeding is to produce talented foals.
And sadly his colour won't prove of much use when it comes to swaying potential breeders, there are plenty of dilute horses out competing in a wide range of disciplines, I should know as I own one ;)
So why would someone chose your stud over one that is the same (or similar) colour which has proven itself to be a good competitor?
Basically the whole point of what I just said is that if he isn't going to go out competing and proving himself then your stud fee for him would have to be lower, you would need to research the stud market a bit to get a feel for what stallions are available at what price.

But I certainly don't see any harm in keeping him entire until he's older and is graded in order to asses his worth as a stallion?
 
I have to ask, why do so many people say that stallions have to be kept alone? I intend on keeping my two shetland colts together for their whole lives. I have been told by several reliable people that this will not be a problem, i could also introduce another colt/stallion/gelding to them and it will be fine - it is only when you have a mare in the mix that you're asking for trouble.... I think it's a very lonely life for any horse kept alone, without a friend to groom!

I too have been in the same dilemna as you Diluteherd - I have decided to keep mine entire and see if they get a licence, I will geld if they don't. I want to keep entire, like you, so that they fill out nicely and have more presence. I know their breeding, one of their great-grand sires is HRE Bignor (any shetland people will probably know this!).

I think as long as you can handle him (sounds as though he is very sweet) and don't take advantage of breeding from him, your dad shouldn't have a problem with it.

Also, he is SO handsome! :D
 
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