The Art of Natural Dressage

I'm having a really big dillemma and I would really appreciate your help... Er is a stallion so he's alone in the pasture. He used to have a buddy in the past, but he was sold away four years ago. Er tends to be quite aggressive towards other horses, mares, stallions and geldings alike. Well maybe aggressive isn't the best word, extremely dominant may be better. He kicks at his stall door when other horses are passing, holding his ears tightly back, he has to have a big distance from other horses on trail rides and so on. His stall neighbour is a pony caled Sokol. When Er comes back to the stall after a day in the pasture, he always sniffs Sokol, making those stallion noises, pawing his foot... Well this morning I turned the horses out in the pasture. Er and Sokol are also pasture neighbours. In the evening I got a call from the stall manager, saying that Sokol made his way to Er's pasture somehow and they are grazing together like it was nothing. He said that neither of them looked hurt in any way (I have to judge that by myself first thing tomorrow). Anyway, he suggested that they could be in the same pasture, because they both could use some company. So far so good, I would love nothing more than to have Er spend more time with other horses. The problem is that last summer we had to put down a stallion that was in the same pasture as Sokol, because of a broken leg. No one ever found out how he broke his leg, but there remained the possibility that Sokol had kicked him and broke it. I have seen Sokol kick at people, once he even hit me, so it wouldn't be impossible that it was indeed he who hurt that stallion. So now I don't know what to do. Should I put them in the pasture together or rather not risk it? I would never forgive myself if Sokol hurt Er in any way... But on the other hand it's really not fair to deny Er the company of his own kind just because I'm worried.... I honestly don't know what to do... :(

For me personally, having my horses in company is the most important thing in horse keeping. To me this matters more than pasture size, food quality or training style. So for me the decision would be clear, I guess.

Even if the leg was broken because of a kick from Sokol, I wonder if this really makes him such a risk factor? I say this because at least in the herds that I know, it simply happens sometimes that a horse kicks another horse. But despite these hundreds or thousans of kicks that the horses in my neighbourhood must have exchanged over the years, I know only one case where a kick resulted in a broken leg. So even if it happened with Sokol once, I wonder what are the odds that he will hit Er in a bad spot as well? Unless he is a notorious kicker of course, but I guess your barn owner would know this and he would have told you?

Good luck! Would be so fantastic if they got along with each other and could stay together.

I think there is always a potential for injury when you put horses together. I think it depends on the size of the available space and whether there are any areas one horse may "trap" the other. When there are other horses too involved they can round up on a newcomer. (And also stir up energy from the next door pasture). That said if it's just the two of them and they are pasture neighbours already and know each other they will probably have the odd disagreement but as long as one can move out of the way of the other then damage should be minimal. The fighting seems to always be about resources. So food or mares might get them having a fight so you may have to be extra vigilant if you bring food into the pasture or mares are passing. I guess you are only going to find out by trying and only you can decide if it's worth the risk.

I too have only ever seen one horse break his leg from a kick. Many of the horses where Morgan stays take kicks from each other with little more than a bit of bruising for a day or two. My horse has been lame once from a kick but I think it's a natural part of herd life

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Annette O'Sullivan

Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans. - John Lennon

I've always wanted Er to have company, I felt really guilty for not being able to enable him to spent time with his own kind. I mean sure, he always had other horses in sight, but that's far from adequate. I try to keep him company most of the day in the pasture, but I eally can't be there all the time, so some horse mates would be the best. The problem is that there are only 5 horses in our barn, 3 mares, Er and Sokol, who is a gelding, by the way. I always worry too much, you could even say I'm a bit paranoid when it comes to Er. I think I know that the right thing to do is to is to put them together, but I can't help but wonder what if... I think I will try putting them together, but under surveillance at first. And there's one more thing. We have 3 pastures. Er is in the smallest, which is about the size of two proper dressage arenas. I'm not sure that's big enough for the two of them, because the grass covers only about half of it. Sokol's pasture is bigger and with more grass, so that would be better, but from that pasture the horses can see the mares in the third pasture. I have put Er in there a couple of times and he spent a long time watching the mares. I mean, he would calm down and graze for a while, but then he would go back to watching them. I'm afaraid that if they would be in that pasture, maybe some fights over mares would break out... I guess it's best to try both of the pastures and then decide? I know, I complicate too much...

I don't think you are complicating it at all! I think you are being careful to make sure no one gets hurt.
Surveillence is always good......maybe they can spend a part of the day together when someone is there......

The day Morgan got kicked someone had left a bucket of food in the driveway and the horses piled up when coming in to be fed and he could not move out the way. So it was a human error not a horse war!!!!

I hope you can find a solution........

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Annette O'Sullivan

Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans. - John Lennon

Katja, this is a complicated - and important - matter. So I think you´re perfectly right going about this with consideration.

I concur with the others here - an accident can happen any time. To my experience, if it´s not a very serious matter, say scarce food, territory or mares, horses rarely fight fiercely. They usually take care not to harm each other. Especially after an initial phase of bouts to establish rank, there is rarely a fight which won´t stop before it becomes physical. That´s what I could see in our herd. We don´t have any stallion involved though...

Of course this is also very dependent on the character of the horses involved. Some get along fine without any visible discussion whatsoever right from the start.

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Volker

The horse owes us nothing.

i agree with the rest. It is better for horses to have company it keep them more healthy there is no better medicine than that
I dont know if it is your horse but you can consider to do a thermografie on the horse.
Maybe there is something inside the horse what makes him to show this behavior. It can be anything from hormones to a food isue.
And i dont mean the reproduction hormones but other ones.

I know a horse who was pretty dominant and not easy to handle. He was had not a good treatment, dark stable, no contact with other horses and a not to friendly human.
They did a thermografie in this situation and then they transport him to a new place. A stable with more light, better treatment, better food, a friend in the field. Did again a thermografie and you saw a compleet other horse.
His behavior was changed too. He became friendly and easy to handle.
So it could be an idea

I have considered thermography, not because of his behaviour, just to give me a general idea of his health state, but unfortunately we don't really have any experts in my country on that field. Driving him to another country to have him checked out is somehthing I can't afford right now.. I don't think that there is a health issue causing his extreme dominance, because he's very easy to handle and very kind to people. But thatnk you for the idea, I will keep it in mind

Maybe if he has a buddy his dominance issues will improve and he'll be better mannered towards other horses.. I know he'll probably never be the kind of horse who just loves to be near other horses, but just to have him accept them is good. If I understand correctly, when he was young, he had a bad experience in a trailer with another horse. The other horse attacked him and he couldn't get away or something like that. And since that he doesn't stand horses getting close to him. He doesn't kick or bite or anything, he just becomes really tense (like he was made of stone, really), arches his neck, makes those scary stallion noises and paws with his front leg. That's usually enough to get the other horse to back off. I'm sure that his attitude has worsened since he lost his previous buddy and since there is no one here at my stable to go for a trail ride with. The more I write, the more I realise that it is absolutely uregent to accept this coincidence as a good thing and let them become buddies. After all, if they didn't like each other, Sokol probably wouldn't find his way into Er's pasture anyway. How he did this is still a mystery to me, no fences were broken, nothing... He was just there. He's a ninja pony

Thanks Morgan, I will deffinately take your advice about them being together that part of the day when someone is there. At least in the begining.

I don't know much about stallions as we don't have them at the stables but we do get a fair amount of recently gelded horses and sometimes they have been active stallions in the herd and only gelded at 5 or 6 when other colts become stallions and the fighting begins.......

I don't agree with the practice of gelding horses later and believe that they should be gelded at around the age of two. (This is what I have heard/learnt/been around but I have no concrete fact to back this up and would be interested what others think?). Where we live it is quite common to find stallions in partially kept herds on chunks of land where they are left to breed at will. This then becomes a problem when a few colts all grow up together and suddenly there are 4 or 5 Stallions and serious injuries as the mares come into heat. Much of the farm gelding is done still without anaesethia and is traumatic to the horse.
Equally it is extremely difficult to keep a stallion with other horses. My friend breeds here and she has a lovely stallion who grew up with geldings and then later was seperated and kept on his own. She hated the fact that he paced all day and screamed for the other horses and now what she does is to give him a mare for the season. He is then quite settled and happy. I am not sure quite how this works or how she decides which mare stays with him but I saw the difference in two visits. One horse pacing and desperate for human contact and something to do, two horses relaxed and ambling over to check out if we brought treats........
At the studs they each have a large pasture and access to their neighbours with post and rail fencing. In livery stables here many horses are kept in open stalls with post and rail but horses still get kicked through them or shatter legs on the poles themselves.....

All told though what are the risks to a horse in the wild? Many horses die very young from injuries.......Horsekeeping of any kind is dangerous and accidents do happen. We can only take an educated guess at what "might" happen and forgive ourselves if we make a mistake.

I don't think I have seen any threads here on stallions......??? I do find it interesting as they do seem to need a different set of thinking to keep them......
Do please let us know how it goes. I would have loved to see ccv footage of what happened. Sokol either jumping ot squeezing through the fence and ER doing what? Staring at him in surprise, snorting, running away or charging up and down trying to chase him out......that would have been great to watch.

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Annette O'Sullivan

Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans. - John Lennon

I agree with you about gelding horses at age 5 or 6, I don't think it's fair to the horse to gled him that late. In my opinion it causes some mental problems. And if you're gelding him to get rid of any behavioral problems, they may not go away if the horse is gelded at age 5 or 6. I have seen a horse gelded at age 5 and his behavior did improve a lot, he used to be aggressive towards humans, and after the surgery, that stopped. But as far as I know he's still senstitive about mares, but I'm not really sure. I must say I have mixed feelings about gelding horses in general. In a way, it's not really fair to just take somehting away from them... But I guess it's the price to pay if we want to have horses in stables and pastures, and not letting them roam free, which is impossible.



Yes, that's true.. But still, I can't help but feel guilty whenever an injury or something like that occurs. I always beat myself up for not being able to prevent it ad so on... It's pointless, I know, but it's hard to stop doing that.



I agree with you, I would also love some stallion-talk The different treatment really depends on the stallion. Some can be treated and kept just the same as geldings, it's as if they don't really realise what their private parts are there for I have seen a mare accidentally roll into the pasture of a stallion and he just kept on grazing But some of them are quite a handful. A whole lot depends on training of course, but some are more dominant that others by nature. This can be especially hard if you get your hands on an older stallion who is pretty dominant by nature and was previously handled in the traditional way... That can become dangerous if you don't really know what you're doing.

Today I checked both Er and Sokol for any injuries and didn't find anything. Er seemed unusually calm and happy.... Was it because of their encounter? I can't help but wonder... But maybe I'm just imagining things. I didn't put them together today, because I was the only one in the barn and I would like someone to be there when I do it, just in case. I hope I will be able to do it tomorrow Can't wait I'll take some photos, Er will surely be twice his size when showing Sokol that he's the boss

Yes my experience too has been that each stallion is different and as you say it depends on how they have been raised/breeding etc.

I have met quite a few stallions but never had the opportunity to spend any real time with them. I'm interested how you came to own one? Did you breed him, do you/have you bred with him? How old is he?

There is a stunning friesian stallion that a local girl takes to the shows. They have such a great rapport. She rides him in classes with mares (everyone is horrified when they find out he's a stallion!!! ) and he behaves inpeccably. Every once in a while he puffs up and starts to nicker and she taps him on the neck and tells him no and he focuses back on her and carries on. She will use him to cover one day and the next day take him to show.....amazing.

From the horses we have currently there are two that are suspected rigs, so they behave very much like they are stallions. I don't have a problem doing anything with them but I am mindful that they can be affected by things around them more so than the other geldings. I don't insist though with them as they do fight back....I ask politely and encourage and bribe if need be, whereas with the other geldings I just insist a bit more and they normally comply!

One of these horses went through a phase of trying to mount a particular mare. She got so used to it that she would just carry on grazing and he would climb onto her and she would shift her weight so he would fall off the side. He would try this every day a few times and then go back to grazing. He did this for about a year. It did mean that he became less aggressive with the other horses as he obviously felt he had his mare even though he wasn't actually covering her, just climbing on and sliding off.....
He is now quite old and the mare has left and he hasn't tried this with the others and seldom fights these days.

Morgan is a gelding and was gelded by the farmer at 2. He displays stallion behaviour when new geldings arrive. He challenges them and will go and poo immediately where they have He also has his favourite poo spots in the camp although quite a few geldings seem to retain this behaviour?

I did get to work a few months ago with a young stallion and clicker and he was an absolute sweety. He didn't behave any different to any of the other horses I play with but then he was ony about 3 and a half and doesn't know what he can do yet!!!!!

In contrast to "pleasure" owning of stallions I used to drive for a local stud taking mares to be covered. There the stallions are brought out to the cover barn snorting and pacing and highly teased beforehand and ready to explode. I can't wonder to imagine what that horse thinks about covering sometimes 3 mares a day in season and then standing for months in between??? It is quite something to watch the power of stallions with one intention. Of course as spectator it was easy to just watch and see it for what it was, but as a handler I am sure its extremely stressful. It was also interesting to see what the stallions did afterwards, all that spent energy and one was particularly fond of taking a quick nap by resting his head on the mares neck afterwards......

I am part of a another forum where a few members have tried to integrate stallions into the herd and one member had her horse "snipped" but not castrated. So he was still able to perform and wanted to but was infertile. This procedure has been done a few times around the world but seems to be still experimental.? He had a mare that he had been with for a long time and she was quite happy to oblige him mounting and all is well. Another had some success with integration and then later the stallion attacked one of the mares and she decided to rehome him to keep him entire.

And then there are the teasers........normally small ponies that are unhandleable that make good teasers to get the mare ready for the stallion......I'm not sure how I feel about that. I think it's one thing having a great horse and breeding a few horses from him with good quality mares but there is the back farm breeding and the high end breeding and milk mares and all the things that people want to make money from.....
It is a good learning curve for me to see and try to understand these things, but sad for the horses that have no say in their lives.

So I can be happy that you have one and treat him so lovingly.........

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Annette O'Sullivan

Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans. - John Lennon

I got Er by chance really. I had just quit riding dressage at the riding school and a friend told me that there was a horse in her barn which could use some attention and exercise. I went there and rode Er a couple of times, but I really didn't like him at the begining. Later on we really clicked and he was just amazing. You could hardy tell he was a stallion. He was just a perfect gentleman in the barn, on walks, on trail rides.. We would go on trail rides with other horses, even mares, and as long as none of them came too close, it was fine. He didn't even notice the mares. After a few years the owner told me that he was giving him away. I really didn't have the resources to own a horse, but I managed to make a deal with the owner and I took him. Er was 15 at the time. Just a month later some of the horses in the barn (Er included) were transfered to another barn. Here, there were no other stallions and he became the alpha male he is today. It is really unbelievable how completely he had changed. I mean he is still mild mannered and very friendly, but boy does he know he's a stallion He prances around, arching his neck, showing the whole world how beautiful he is. He has so much more energy here than he had in the previous barn, he's really wonderfull to work with. I like to say he's like Benjamin Button He doesn't age, but he becomes younger and younger. Seriously, he acts like he's nine, not nineteen years old.

I did however have a few problems when I stopped being his boss and tried to be his buddy. He did take over control for a while, and it was a bit scary at times, because he would drag me around and try to bite me and so on. I almost gave up and thought about going back to the traditional ways, but slowly it got better. Positive reinforcement and endless hours spent with him in the pasture really payed off. Now I'm on my way to having the relationship I wanted with him.

I don't intend to breed him though, because he has very crooked legs and I'm worried it would pass on to his descendant. In my country there is a more restrictive policy about breeding, because there are too many horses ending up at the slaughterhouse because of uncontrolled breeding. So if the stallion doesn't have very good genes, it is best not to breed him. I wish I could have Er's offspring though, especially if he would pass on his character, because he's just the most reliable and fair horse there is.



I wish I could see that, it must be so funny It sound like a win win situation for both of them

The way that stllions poo is just great, because they always poo in the same spot. They're really easy to clean up after. Er always poos in the same spot in the pasture, so I don't have to walk all around the pasture to clean it. And as a bonus, his spot is really near the gate Whenever Er walks into a different pasure, the first thing he does is poo over the dung that's already there. But is it a territorrial thing? I was under the impression that wild horses don't really have territorries...

I find stallions to be easier to work with than mares. I haven't really worked with that many geldings, so I can't really compare. Stallions also learn quicker in my experience. Again, it depends on the horse.. Perhaps it has something to do with them being more confidant... I work with young horses and have had more problems with mares than stallions. With mares it really depended on the day, if they had a bad day, it was best to just leave them alone, but stallions were always eager to learn.

I haven't had much experience with stallions who are bred. I think this snipping you were talking about is a bit dangerous, because one would think that if he's snipped, then it's okay to put him with mares. But since he's still got the instinct and will to perform, it can be dangerous since a mare that isn't ready can hurt him... But snipping does seem a more natural way of controling the horse population. I guess if you know what you're doing, it's absolutely great to have a herd of mares and stallions.

Er sounds like he's a real character. What do you think changed his behaviour from one barn to the other. Was it the change in the herd dynamics or the food/turnout?

Morgan too prances around like that and squeals and paws at the other geldings and fiercly attacks them from the other side of the fence line when he knows they can't get him. He too seems to be very dominant in the herd and full of confidence.


According to wikipedia, stallions establish piles of dung on a path they take to warn other stallions and when a mare urinates the stallion will urinate on top of it to signal that the mare is accepted. Stallions are frequently seen sniffing the dung to confirm scent markings.

Alot of sniffing then....


I wish it was better controlled here.



I found this so interesting because I had never even thought that it could be done to a horse. You would just think it would be a stallion or a gelding and occasionally a rig. What do you call a stallion that has had this done......I am not even sure if we can try to compare to wild or natural anymore. Even our domesticated herds are chosen by us or happen randomly by human choice not by fittest or strongest genes. This is all the stallion wants and is programmed to produce his offspring.....
I have no idea how many mares a stallion would cover in a natural herd or how many mares he would have in his band or how the interaction is between the mares. Our group is 16 horses of mixed breeds/uses and they share mixed camps (mares and geldings). They are moved around as new horses come or some horses fight more with another horse until they find a group they fit and all is well. All the horses go out to graze and seperate again into different groups. So they spend the day together and the night with different horses. If a particular horse keeps running into another camp and clearly wants to be there we will try it out. (So it wasn't a surprise when you said you found Sokol in with Er, sometimes ours escape in the night too.... ).

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Annette O'Sullivan

Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans. - John Lennon

maybe you have here your basics??
He was in the past not the only stallion and maybe not the highest in rang. So he had not the feeling that he had to lead a herd.
Now he is the only stalion and he thinks he had to take over the lead which he maybe not prefer.
Can you follow me?
maybe i can only guess, i dont know him, just your story...this is what changed his behavior.

I´ve no experience with stallions to add to your stallion talk unfortunately. But as Mucki is the dominant male in our herd, he seems to show stallion-like behaviour . He needs to sniff every dung pile, he craps over other dung piles and of course he controls the access to his mares. Every mare in his herd, except Lily interestingly, makes advances towards him when in heat. Until now, he has only mounted Ally, the lead mare. She tells him unmistakeably that he has to perform his duties, or else!

The study results I´ve read so far say that in natural circumstances breeding is well controlled. Stallions chase off young female offspring to keep the gene pool diverse and to prevent inbreeding.
It´s not like one would imagine it, that a stallion tries to mount each and every mare in sight. That´s surely a byproduct of the single confinement that domesticated stallions live in mostly. And of course a real family band is rarely seen.

I also regret it a bit that Mucki can not be what he was destined to be. Of course he may be easier to handle and to keep, but there are also health risks involved. Geldings have much higher risk of penis cancer for example. Since every erection cleans the penis, that is something most geldings lack. (It´s a strange topic, but I would really be interested in how one can clean the penis of a gelding? I tried but failed mostly )

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Volker

The horse owes us nothing.