Franklin Levinson's
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Dealing With Stallion Behavior
Hi Franklin,
I have a problem with my stallion and need your assistance. He is now about 4 yo, has done a basic training, I ride him regularly with a saddle and we go quite a long distance riding. He is a bit frisky, wants always to be first and runs very fast, but I can control him. My problem is that I do not have enough time to ride him everyday and he spend his days in a field with mares. One day he got loose and paired with one of them, and from that day he is uncontrolable. He is not at all obedient and now whenever I try to lead him for a ride he jumps in the air and tries to go back to the mares.
How can I calm him down ? I do not have enough experience, of course I raised him and trained him as best as I could, but he is a different horse since he€šs been with the mare. I would appreciate your answer.
Thank you very much, Billy
Hi Billy,
Unless you plan to breed this horse because his has such exceptional lineage, this first thing you should consider is having the horse gelded. If he stays a stallion he will always have this sort of behavior and will always need to have special handling. You will not be able to trust him, take him many places and the behavior will continue and be harder to deal with as the horse gets a bit older. Please consider this humane and appropriate alternative to keeping him a stallion. It will give you and this horse a better life. As he is already four and probably filled out nicely, he will retain his looks, but probably will give up most of the stallion behavior. The longer he remains a stallion, the more habituated to his behavior he will become. The more he gets away from you, breeds and does his own thing, the more problems you will have. He can seriously hurt you, a family member, a child or a stranger. Please seriously consider this most important decision and your responsibility (liability) if you decide to keep him as a stallion.
You will not train stallion behavior out of the horse. You will not 'work' him so much that he will just remain calm. The most you can hope for is that, after extensive training in hand (on the ground) and extensive training under saddle along with it, he will not be so rambunctious. By extensive training on the ground I mean months of round pen play and arena ground schooling with you as well as months of under saddle schooling. This requires very good and refined training skills and an extensive knowledge of stallion behavior. Stallions can be very dangerous to deal with (as you are experiencing). This is why there is so much abuse of stallions, as people think they need to induce fear in the horse in order to make the horse do as they say. Frequently this prompts the horse to go to war with the human. Actually, what you do want is respect earned over time. This come from consistency and good skills in handling and training. This is no quick remedy to your situation. It is dangerous as it is and will certainly get worse unless you begin your training program, stay with it and really know what you are doing. However, if you want a lovely pleasure horse you can trust, please geld this horse now. That is the most reasonable and effective answer to your question. Be careful!
Sincerely, Franklin