Foal-obssessed gelding

[ottodyl1]

My mare foaled Monday night (big chestnut colt - all well). She was turned out with my 26 year old ex-eventer til a couple of days before when she was showing signs. They had a bit of a love-hate relationship with the mare bossing the poor gelding & he was never that bothered when left behind in the field without her. Mare & foal are now turned out in view of the stables & the gelding goes mad whenever he sees them - screaming, churning round his box & getting his knickers in a real twist! He is worse when they go out of sight & still calls when turned out in a paddock over the road, tho he has other horses/ponies in adjoining fields. He has always been very easy to deal with on the ground & has never behaved like this in the 20 years I have owned him. We are based in the New Forest so he sees lots of foals roaming round when out hacking.
Has anyone else experienced anything like this & how long does it take for the novelty to wear off?

 

[zizz]

its never worn off for my 14 year old arab gelding, he adores foals! He always lighty up at shows when he sees them, nickering across the showground to them, but then he was a nanny at a stud for a few years as a youngster. I think he wants to have one himself

 

[christine48]

We had a gelding like that and he went out with the mare and foal after a few weeks. He was more protective than the mare towards the foal-a great nanny

 

[emlybob]

I have heard of many geldings like this. Years ago we had a foal and could not turn out a gelding we had at the time next to her as he went bonkers everytime he saw her. Since I have had another gelding who was obsessed with mare and foal so much so he used to charge at the mare through the fence. luckily the fence was in the way. They do have a sort of sixth sense and the gelding prob just wants to protect the foal or possibly thinks it is an intruder and wants to get it away from "HIS" mare. Who knows why, someone must have an answer

 

[ottodyl1]

I wondered if in some misguided way he thought it might be his foal! He takes no notice of any other foals. Don't want to risk turning him out with them as he is still ridden so has hind shoes, & though I'm pretty sure he wouldn't do anything I wouldn't want to take the risk. He's more likely to get beaten up by mum anyway! I'm hoping he's going to settle down in time before he worries all his weight off!

 

[tasel]

[ QUOTE ]
its never worn off for my 14 year old arab gelding, he adores foals! He always lighty up at shows when he sees them, nickering across the showground to them, but then he was a nanny at a stud for a few years as a youngster. I think he wants to have one himself

[/ QUOTE ]

Sorry, nothing better to say... but this is just too cute to imagine.

 

[FinnishLapphund]

There was a rather good Showjumping gelding in Sweden a few years ago (competed on international level) named Paradiso, don't remember who he lived with after his retirement but I remember an article in Swedish Ridsport about him. When he was like 20 to 22 years old, a mare that had a foal on the yard died when the foal was just one or two weeks old, they started searching for a foster mare, but Paradiso was so interested in the foal they decided to try and let them spend some time together until hopefully a foster-mare was found.

Paradiso started grooming the foal, nickering and not even objecting when the foal looked to see if he had any udders, he just moved his behind away as soon as possible. It didn't take long for them to stop looking for a foster-mare, they fed the foal and Paradiso did everything else.