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Who do you think is smarter Mare, Stallion or Gelding2007-11-24 21:22:56

At a recent exhibtion at Paint World, the person who was doing the cutting / reining horse seminar said that he had found that mares were the fastest and easiest to train. That they learned faster and retained it better. Kinda of a "show them one time and you are done". Said that stallions were more like adolescent boys. Talk real tough but go and pout when they are put in their place. And that geldings were the slowest to learn. What is everyone elses thoughts on this?

Answers:

Just like with people, there are differences in intelligence and this generally has nothing to do with gender. We have stupid men and women in humans, and there are stupid mares, stallions, and geldings.

Each horseperson usually had a different gender they prefer, as you've seen. In my observations:

People who need consistency, reliability, and loyalty prefer geldings. A lot of general use ranch horses, children's horses, pleasure horses, and lower-level show horses are geldings.

People who need a horse with drive and focus tend to lean towards mares.

In cases where you need flash and presence, a lot of people absolutely swear by stallions.

Some people just 'click' better with one gender or another. Each gender-and each individual horse-needs to be trained and taught differently, and so some people's styles mesh better with either mares, stallions, or geldings.

None of that has anything to do with intelligence, though.

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Stallions and colts have other things on their mind 24/7. Too much testosterone for their own good. Mares can also be very hormonal and temperamental and their performance can also be affected by that. I like geldings because you don't have the same issues but again they can be a bit dense. It also depends on their breeding etc. Shetlands regardless of sex are just wily by nature. I prefer geldings and you also don't have issues about stabling them with others, worrying who is next to them on the trailer etc. They make life easier.

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These opinions are some based onfact, but mainly opinion. I know a few professional horse trainers that swear by STALLIONS. Its a fact, stallions are harder to train because they are constantly distracted by mares and other surrounding horses. You CAN train them through the same processes as a normal horse, but you must be more persistnat and patient and quicker with your dicipline to be sure no habits are formed. SOME mares ARE harder to handle when they cycle, and mares are seasonally polyestrous, which means they only cycle during certain months in the year and they cycle REPEATEDLY, so if they act up when they cycle, you are in it for a while. Geldings don't ahve to worry about this, but if you geld them EARLY, they don't develop well muscling as they should. However, if you wait to long to geld them, they are referred to as STAGS and you will sometimes have some studly behavior retained.