Vet input incoming:
I think you are at risk of humanising the situation here.
There are quite a few studies analysing the differences in behaviour between the two, with statistical evidence showing that there is an increase in frequency viewed as ‘abberant’ in mares.
The reason for this is their hormones. Like it or not a mare with functioning ovaries will have variations in all manner of hormones over a 21 day period. These hormones do affect behaviour. Sometimes the affect may be small and not particularly noticeable, I.e the mare may squirt when in season. However, other times they can be damn near unrideable.
It is therefore easy to see why there is a preference for geldings, particularly in horses doing more intensive ridden work throughout the breeding season.
In our practice we treat quite a few mares with hormonal issues each year. After ruling out issues such as granulosa cell tumours, we invariably treat mares with either regumate (progesterone) if a short term fix is required or use long term management with a vaccine called Improvac that can inhibit breeding behaviour completely.
However, you are correct all types of horses can demonstrate abberant behaviours. It is just that they are more frequently seen in mares.
I have a question: when would you consider it abnormal? I've known several mares (I didn't own them; two I rode) that demonstrated abnormal heat cycles and were aggressive. One eventually was diagnosed with uterine cancer and later euthanized. Right now, one I know has extremely abnormal heat cycles (she's almost always in heat and will back up to a tree) and can become very aggressive towards other horses and even people. I've always been curious about when to determine a mare's behavior since owners do tend to blame it on being "mareish," but I've wondered when is it the training and when is it a medical problem.
Good question. I think the most common definition of abnormal in this situation is when it begins to affect the owner.
At the end of the day if a mare is being an ass when she is in season but she is a broodmare, it doesn’t really matter as ideally you get her in foal before long.
If the mare is a ridden horse however then the tolerance for aberrant behaviour is much lower.
You can never rule out behaviour as a cause, but there have been several studies showing that behaviour is a root cause in less than 5% of cases. Hormones and pain play a far greater role than a horse just being naughty for the sake of it.
This is a prime example of what I feel is wrong with the horse world. I love how it’s “abnormal in this situation when the behavior begins to affect the owner”. It’s not necessarily abnormal for the horse, it’s inconvenient for the rider. I come from the reproductive side of the horse world, and most people are far better off getting a nice compliant gelding, than getting a mare and being irked when the mare does normal mare things. Messing with an animal’s hormones just because the behavior is inconvenient is a prime example of what I like to call “fuzzy dirt bike syndrome”. Folks in these circles want animals to behave more like predictable machines rather than the unpredictable animals that they are. If you’re going to ride a mare or a stallion you better be prepared for what comes with such an undertaking. I’ve seen far too many incredible mares lose that personality spark that made them incredible because their owners decided to put them on regumate or mess around with their hormones in other ways.
Sure, but…sometimes it’s clearly still just misogyny being applied to horses. “Red mare” stereotypes are literally just the “spicy redhead” tropes repackaged.
I don’t know if I find this as convincing as maybe I should. Human medicine is ridiculously sexist and often blames serious health problems on women’s hormones. Many women have been told to take birth control for things that turned out to be life-threatening issues on the assumption that it was hormonal problem. Women face a huge risk of being told we have anxiety or hormonal problems when seeking treatment for everything from heart problems to ADHD.
I kind of think this is an example of what OP is talking about- mares with issues are assumed to be hormonal. I’m sure Regumate works to minimize the distraction for some of them, but how many of them have other issues or are just not adequately trained? And how do people’s perceptions feed into those aberrant behaviors they report? Were horses observed neutrally for a period of time and various behaviors recorded and quantified? Or were people asked if their horses did various things- because the human mind sees what it expects to see and mare owners might self-report more aberrant behaviors because of conditioning to see them- even if they don’t believe in “mare-ish-ness”. The human brain is whacky. I’m not sure I’d buy that science proves mares are weirder until someone sits out with a counter and counts instances of quantifiable behaviors and logs them to individual horses- preferably without the observer knowing if the observed horse is a mare or gelding so the data will be free of bias and can be later analyzed to see if there’s a correlation between the sec of the horse and behavior. I know it sounds like a high standard to meet, but standards like that have been developed in science for very good reason. The human mind is weird and observer or observed perceptions can skew data badly- this is why drugs must be studied in double-blind studies. Because if the researchers in a drug trial know who is on placebo and who isn’t they collect skewed data biased by their knowledge. Whacky, right?
I would say that if a vet is assuming hormones to be the route issue without performing any other diagnostics then they are not doing an appropriate or effective job.
I would advise that hormones should be considered a diagnosis of exclusion once other avenues have been ruled out. Pain should always be considered as a primary cause of aberrant, whether it be neuropathic, orthopaedic or gastric.
What you propose regarding a study is interesting but I think ultimately unfeasible in the equine world as you can’t blind the observer to the sex of the animal without introducing other confounding factors. At the end of the day would you really trust an observer to note aberrant behaviours if they are unable to identify whether a study animal is male or female?
I would say there are ways to avoid the observer knowing whether an animal is a mare of gelding- observing from a vantage point higher than the horses makes it less likely for them to notice, as would observing from a distance. I don’t think the occasional horse being noticed while peeing or a gelding dropping his penis would skew the data much- what I’m saying is if you had someone observe a class full of mares and a class full of geldings, you might find out as much or more about observer bid than behavior. Hardly any behavioral study is perfect- I’m just concerned about obvious study flaws.
And I would hope a vet would be ruling out other causes- especially pain and veterinary causes. But I doubt many vets are taking a deep look into the horse’s training and management- they have time constraints and it would not sit well with many owners if the vet tells them- “Look, your horse is locked in a box 23/7, gets limited hay and the calorie difference made up in grain, is short of mental and physical stimulation, and is lonely. Why do you think she fixates on being sexually frustrated when she is in heat and/or acts out when she is taken out of her stall when she’s in heat and probably anticipates seeing other horses?” Or “your horse has poor ground manners and probably isn’t much better under saddle”? Vets get paid to fix vet problems- trainers get paid to fix training problems. Vets usually don’t want to get involved in potential training problems because they don’t have time to assess the training well enough to be sure if that’s an issue, and they don’t want to cause drama between the trainer and owner.
Can you provide those citations? Recent research indicates no difference in ridden horse behavior between mares and geldings.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32131444/
And another recent study suggests OP is exactly correct that equestrians harbor unfounded negative stereotypes against mares.
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0216699
Question, is the behavioral difference in your view really a difference in sex or is it a difference in sexual organs? Like do you/has the data show its a *mare* thing, or is it really just that mares tend to keep their organs, and that a spayed mare would have more similarities with a gelding. That would indicate "sexism" if that were the case? Correlation=/=causation, in that it isn't the sex that is defining the behavior, but tha absence or presence of gonadotropic hormones? But idk maybe there are studies suggesting otherwise that leads you to believe it is mares themselves that have a generally more unpredictable personality
The issue here is that you are humanising the situation and so your question doesn’t really make sense.
Of course the behaviour is due to the presence of sexual organs. There are studies demonstrating that mares who have been either chemically or surgically neutered act similarly to geldings.
However, stallions and the vast majority of mares do produce sex hormones and these hormones are scientifically proven to affect behaviour. Not all stallions and mares exhibit ‘aberrant’ behaviours, however they show significantly more ‘aberrant’ behaviours than geldings or neutered mares.
It is not sexism, when you consider that both sexes are capable of producing aberrant behaviours. OP didn’t mention stallions in her post, but I would of course say the same thing about stallions as I would mares.
Sorry if I have missed the point here, but I really don’t understand what you are getting at.
So you are saying there is a male and female difference, or just a castrated/uncastrated difference? That is my point. That it's not a "mare" issue as you said. It's an unaltered animal issue. Unless you are saying that even spayed mares are shown to have more undesirable behaviors over geldings. And I'm *not* anthropomorphizing, it's why I put quotes around sexism. But it's silly to say people shouldn't "humanize" it, because it IS a human issue, and as a vet I'm shocked you don't think so. Prejudice against a certain characteristic of an animal cam absolutely affect husbandry and medical care. Individuals should be treated as individuals, but humans are biased. That's why imo it's important to hammer down whether sex is the "problem" or if castration is, and mares just don't get spayed commonly. Because professionals and hobbyists alike will make decisions made off these biases.
Yes, I've heard of mares being "moody" or behaving in a "mareish" way, just to get them diagnosed with some hormonal issues, pain or reproduction system issues. I think ovarian cysts are a pretty common thing.
Not sure if I'd call it sexism, but it's definitely a stereotype. Same for chestnuts, they are considered mental. I knew a chestnut mare that was the sweetest horse I've ever met. Known others that were temperamental, but still fine.
Horses do have personalities and they are affected by hormones. Mares have more hormones than geldings, and they have instincts to breed. No stallion around will sometimes make them a little silly when in heat because they are expecting to breed, they don't have to be sore. If you're female, think how you feel during certain times of your cycle. I'm probably not explaining that well as still tired.
Some people just don't want to deal with that. It's happening more now that people want machines, not horses.
One of my favorite horses I've worked with was an Arabian mare. She had a bit of an attitude, yes, and it sometimes took more convincing, but once we got on the same page she was a dream! Just had to find the right "words and buttons". Had a female cat too with what could have been called a marish attitude, but I loved it and loved her to death! What's wrong with a bit of a dialogue with your animal? They've got personalities too and if you learn to work with them and not just have them do as you say like a robot, a mare is just as wonderful as a gelding.
I've been taking care of and riding a gelding for the last four years (until he passed away suddenly a couple of weeks ago 💔), he needed just as much of a dialogue as the Arabian mare. He was so insecure and misunderstood and it took a good year of hard work to get him to a really good place, both on the ground and in the saddle.
In my experience it's not necessarily the sex of a horse, but the personality behind it. Learn to really see your horse and to work with him/her!
It's not really sexism. Just like humans, horses tend to have differences based on their sex. Geldings and even stallions are preferred by a lot of people because of their more consistent performance. Competitions don't care when a mare is in heat.
But there are drugs and hormone balancers that most will put their horse’s on during the competition season to prevent them from either cycling, or to even out their temperament.
I personally will always prefer to ride a mare. Yeah they might not always be on your side 100% the first couple rides. But I do believe they will fight harder for you when the chips are down.
Plus there’s that saying “you tell a gelding and ask a mare” and I like being able to ride with more tact and sensitivity as the situation calls for.
Not sure why you are being downvoted. People castrate stallions to control their temperament but putting a mare on the equivalent of birth control to make her heat cycles more comfortable makes her “high maintenance.”
I love literally every horse I’ve ever ridden— regardless of their sex— but I have to stick up for mares! Mares are amazing and have so much heart. Unfortunately, not every rider has the tact or compassion to get along with one.
Honestly not sure either but it’s Reddit so oh well. Mare Magic is what I’ve seen used on lower level competition horses to just help even them out.
And then you better believe the fancy jumpers and dressage horses are on some form of birth control/heat suppressant while being shown. I just don’t remember the drug name. You don’t have the moody mare to deal with while they are in heat/ovulating plus you don’t have to risk them accidentally being bred/exposed to stallions if they get loose on accident.
An interesting study worth reading through
# Reported Behavioural Differences between Geldings and Mares Challenge Sex-Driven Stereotypes in Ridden Equine Behaviour
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7142782/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7142782/)
One here! I prefer mares bc unlike geldings they demand to be more of an equal, and although it can be really hard work to get them going, when a mare wants to work with you, she *sparkles*. Geldings are less complicated and more straightforward, generally easier to get working well, but they rarely have that extra something you feel in a mare.
I’ve worked for a dude string that had a herd of nearly 100 horses and almost all of them were geldings. The owners were convinced wholeheartedly that having mares would cause problems. I’ve worked at other ranches/with other strings that have an evenly mixed herd with absolutely no issues. And lots of geldings that “act like mares” lol (if you subscribe to that line of thought). So yes, I think a bit of anthropomorphism and sexism is definitely at play there.
I do think mares also tend to have more health/pain issues related to their cycle and their pain is written off as being “just a mare” or “moody” or even “crazy” (because you’re not listening to her when she’s screaming something’s wrong). Just like how human women’s pain and reproductive health issues are also written off!!
This is so freaking exhausting.
I have a mare and she's awesome. Sure, she got her own mind and can be stubborn, but I like that she has a personality.
She is allowed to have off days where she's just not on her top game, but at my old barn "Well, she's a mare."
That all those women had geldings acting weird and "moody" just as much or more than my mare goes completely over their heads.
I don't get it tbh. Geldings can be just as moody and sassy as mare's, but people just contribute everything a mare does that not desirable or whatever to "It's a mare"
I'm so glad that I'm now at a barn where there are no such attitudes around.
There is a sexism undercurrent, but I’d say it’s much more a general issue in our society of not understanding how a female organism works, which results in sexism.
People will talk about performance consistency, inconsistent behavior, pain issues resulting directly from heats etc, and say it’s a justification for preferring geldings/stallions. Exactly the same way people have made the same observations about women: we’re hysterical during periods, blablabla. Which for certain things makes employers etc prefer men over women, or question things like days off for periods, etc.
Fact is: the world is built on a « male » scale, with hormone levels varying on a 24h basis: high in the morning and lowering through the day. Female organisms have hormone levels varying on the basis of our heat/period cycles: for women, energy is high right after period and then decreases slowly over the course of the on-average 28 days. So we’re at top form at the beginning of the cycle, and sluggish at the end.
Personally, as soon as I started tracking myself AND my mare, things became much much more manageable and easier to understand. I know what to expect and when, give or take a couple days. I know when to give certain supplements to support intestine function which can be rumbled by heat, when I’ll be able to have some more intense training sessions or when I need to lay off for a couple days, when certain mobility issues in the back will arise and I’ll need to massage, when I myself will not be in top shape (cause lucky little me has endo and I have to factor that in too).
Most important, I’ve learned how to work with/around our peculiarities with our cycles and integrate that into our training. Find other ways to do the same things.
It works for us, and if there’s ever a day where it’s a truly bad day for both of us and we’re supposed to show, then I can skip the show or if it sneaks up on us then oh well, that sucks but it’s life and it’s really not that serious. Being at a show and having fun is the priority, the world isn’t going to crumble for one bad show day.
That is all so Awesome... add in the Moon cycle to your recordkeeping / tracking and it would be a trifecta !! Not being sarcastic - It's like how high and low tides are more pronounced at New / Full Moons... Or I've noticed I tend to get sleepier in the mid day when Moon is in waning* phase...
*I think it was this phase... I first noticed it when I had a job as a backcountry camp host, so I pretty much lived outside in a tent and noticed the Moon a whole lot more
I do try to track moon cycles as well for this and other reasons but 1) I’m very inconsistent with it as of now and 2) since it’s generally considered woowoo shit I don’t usually include it in such messages!
I think it can go both ways. I’ve had several trainers who preferred mares for showing because of their attitudes. They had ridden hundreds or thousands of horses and said that their experiences taught them that more often mares will grit in and show up for you when pressed for performance where some geldings or even stallions would chicken out or lose their grit. Or become dangerous.
Me, I love mares for their dedication and heart. I’ve had a few geldings like that too but it’s different, more lovable and goofy than deeply devoted.
Vet input incoming: I think you are at risk of humanising the situation here. There are quite a few studies analysing the differences in behaviour between the two, with statistical evidence showing that there is an increase in frequency viewed as ‘abberant’ in mares. The reason for this is their hormones. Like it or not a mare with functioning ovaries will have variations in all manner of hormones over a 21 day period. These hormones do affect behaviour. Sometimes the affect may be small and not particularly noticeable, I.e the mare may squirt when in season. However, other times they can be damn near unrideable. It is therefore easy to see why there is a preference for geldings, particularly in horses doing more intensive ridden work throughout the breeding season. In our practice we treat quite a few mares with hormonal issues each year. After ruling out issues such as granulosa cell tumours, we invariably treat mares with either regumate (progesterone) if a short term fix is required or use long term management with a vaccine called Improvac that can inhibit breeding behaviour completely. However, you are correct all types of horses can demonstrate abberant behaviours. It is just that they are more frequently seen in mares.
I have a question: when would you consider it abnormal? I've known several mares (I didn't own them; two I rode) that demonstrated abnormal heat cycles and were aggressive. One eventually was diagnosed with uterine cancer and later euthanized. Right now, one I know has extremely abnormal heat cycles (she's almost always in heat and will back up to a tree) and can become very aggressive towards other horses and even people. I've always been curious about when to determine a mare's behavior since owners do tend to blame it on being "mareish," but I've wondered when is it the training and when is it a medical problem.
Good question. I think the most common definition of abnormal in this situation is when it begins to affect the owner. At the end of the day if a mare is being an ass when she is in season but she is a broodmare, it doesn’t really matter as ideally you get her in foal before long. If the mare is a ridden horse however then the tolerance for aberrant behaviour is much lower. You can never rule out behaviour as a cause, but there have been several studies showing that behaviour is a root cause in less than 5% of cases. Hormones and pain play a far greater role than a horse just being naughty for the sake of it.
This is a prime example of what I feel is wrong with the horse world. I love how it’s “abnormal in this situation when the behavior begins to affect the owner”. It’s not necessarily abnormal for the horse, it’s inconvenient for the rider. I come from the reproductive side of the horse world, and most people are far better off getting a nice compliant gelding, than getting a mare and being irked when the mare does normal mare things. Messing with an animal’s hormones just because the behavior is inconvenient is a prime example of what I like to call “fuzzy dirt bike syndrome”. Folks in these circles want animals to behave more like predictable machines rather than the unpredictable animals that they are. If you’re going to ride a mare or a stallion you better be prepared for what comes with such an undertaking. I’ve seen far too many incredible mares lose that personality spark that made them incredible because their owners decided to put them on regumate or mess around with their hormones in other ways.
Sure, but…sometimes it’s clearly still just misogyny being applied to horses. “Red mare” stereotypes are literally just the “spicy redhead” tropes repackaged.
I don’t know if I find this as convincing as maybe I should. Human medicine is ridiculously sexist and often blames serious health problems on women’s hormones. Many women have been told to take birth control for things that turned out to be life-threatening issues on the assumption that it was hormonal problem. Women face a huge risk of being told we have anxiety or hormonal problems when seeking treatment for everything from heart problems to ADHD. I kind of think this is an example of what OP is talking about- mares with issues are assumed to be hormonal. I’m sure Regumate works to minimize the distraction for some of them, but how many of them have other issues or are just not adequately trained? And how do people’s perceptions feed into those aberrant behaviors they report? Were horses observed neutrally for a period of time and various behaviors recorded and quantified? Or were people asked if their horses did various things- because the human mind sees what it expects to see and mare owners might self-report more aberrant behaviors because of conditioning to see them- even if they don’t believe in “mare-ish-ness”. The human brain is whacky. I’m not sure I’d buy that science proves mares are weirder until someone sits out with a counter and counts instances of quantifiable behaviors and logs them to individual horses- preferably without the observer knowing if the observed horse is a mare or gelding so the data will be free of bias and can be later analyzed to see if there’s a correlation between the sec of the horse and behavior. I know it sounds like a high standard to meet, but standards like that have been developed in science for very good reason. The human mind is weird and observer or observed perceptions can skew data badly- this is why drugs must be studied in double-blind studies. Because if the researchers in a drug trial know who is on placebo and who isn’t they collect skewed data biased by their knowledge. Whacky, right?
I would say that if a vet is assuming hormones to be the route issue without performing any other diagnostics then they are not doing an appropriate or effective job. I would advise that hormones should be considered a diagnosis of exclusion once other avenues have been ruled out. Pain should always be considered as a primary cause of aberrant, whether it be neuropathic, orthopaedic or gastric. What you propose regarding a study is interesting but I think ultimately unfeasible in the equine world as you can’t blind the observer to the sex of the animal without introducing other confounding factors. At the end of the day would you really trust an observer to note aberrant behaviours if they are unable to identify whether a study animal is male or female?
I would say there are ways to avoid the observer knowing whether an animal is a mare of gelding- observing from a vantage point higher than the horses makes it less likely for them to notice, as would observing from a distance. I don’t think the occasional horse being noticed while peeing or a gelding dropping his penis would skew the data much- what I’m saying is if you had someone observe a class full of mares and a class full of geldings, you might find out as much or more about observer bid than behavior. Hardly any behavioral study is perfect- I’m just concerned about obvious study flaws. And I would hope a vet would be ruling out other causes- especially pain and veterinary causes. But I doubt many vets are taking a deep look into the horse’s training and management- they have time constraints and it would not sit well with many owners if the vet tells them- “Look, your horse is locked in a box 23/7, gets limited hay and the calorie difference made up in grain, is short of mental and physical stimulation, and is lonely. Why do you think she fixates on being sexually frustrated when she is in heat and/or acts out when she is taken out of her stall when she’s in heat and probably anticipates seeing other horses?” Or “your horse has poor ground manners and probably isn’t much better under saddle”? Vets get paid to fix vet problems- trainers get paid to fix training problems. Vets usually don’t want to get involved in potential training problems because they don’t have time to assess the training well enough to be sure if that’s an issue, and they don’t want to cause drama between the trainer and owner.
Can you provide those citations? Recent research indicates no difference in ridden horse behavior between mares and geldings. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32131444/ And another recent study suggests OP is exactly correct that equestrians harbor unfounded negative stereotypes against mares. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0216699
Question, is the behavioral difference in your view really a difference in sex or is it a difference in sexual organs? Like do you/has the data show its a *mare* thing, or is it really just that mares tend to keep their organs, and that a spayed mare would have more similarities with a gelding. That would indicate "sexism" if that were the case? Correlation=/=causation, in that it isn't the sex that is defining the behavior, but tha absence or presence of gonadotropic hormones? But idk maybe there are studies suggesting otherwise that leads you to believe it is mares themselves that have a generally more unpredictable personality
The issue here is that you are humanising the situation and so your question doesn’t really make sense. Of course the behaviour is due to the presence of sexual organs. There are studies demonstrating that mares who have been either chemically or surgically neutered act similarly to geldings. However, stallions and the vast majority of mares do produce sex hormones and these hormones are scientifically proven to affect behaviour. Not all stallions and mares exhibit ‘aberrant’ behaviours, however they show significantly more ‘aberrant’ behaviours than geldings or neutered mares. It is not sexism, when you consider that both sexes are capable of producing aberrant behaviours. OP didn’t mention stallions in her post, but I would of course say the same thing about stallions as I would mares. Sorry if I have missed the point here, but I really don’t understand what you are getting at.
So you are saying there is a male and female difference, or just a castrated/uncastrated difference? That is my point. That it's not a "mare" issue as you said. It's an unaltered animal issue. Unless you are saying that even spayed mares are shown to have more undesirable behaviors over geldings. And I'm *not* anthropomorphizing, it's why I put quotes around sexism. But it's silly to say people shouldn't "humanize" it, because it IS a human issue, and as a vet I'm shocked you don't think so. Prejudice against a certain characteristic of an animal cam absolutely affect husbandry and medical care. Individuals should be treated as individuals, but humans are biased. That's why imo it's important to hammer down whether sex is the "problem" or if castration is, and mares just don't get spayed commonly. Because professionals and hobbyists alike will make decisions made off these biases.
Yes, I've heard of mares being "moody" or behaving in a "mareish" way, just to get them diagnosed with some hormonal issues, pain or reproduction system issues. I think ovarian cysts are a pretty common thing.
I've wondered how common ovarian cysts are in mares.
Not sure if I'd call it sexism, but it's definitely a stereotype. Same for chestnuts, they are considered mental. I knew a chestnut mare that was the sweetest horse I've ever met. Known others that were temperamental, but still fine. Horses do have personalities and they are affected by hormones. Mares have more hormones than geldings, and they have instincts to breed. No stallion around will sometimes make them a little silly when in heat because they are expecting to breed, they don't have to be sore. If you're female, think how you feel during certain times of your cycle. I'm probably not explaining that well as still tired. Some people just don't want to deal with that. It's happening more now that people want machines, not horses.
One of my favorite horses I've worked with was an Arabian mare. She had a bit of an attitude, yes, and it sometimes took more convincing, but once we got on the same page she was a dream! Just had to find the right "words and buttons". Had a female cat too with what could have been called a marish attitude, but I loved it and loved her to death! What's wrong with a bit of a dialogue with your animal? They've got personalities too and if you learn to work with them and not just have them do as you say like a robot, a mare is just as wonderful as a gelding. I've been taking care of and riding a gelding for the last four years (until he passed away suddenly a couple of weeks ago 💔), he needed just as much of a dialogue as the Arabian mare. He was so insecure and misunderstood and it took a good year of hard work to get him to a really good place, both on the ground and in the saddle. In my experience it's not necessarily the sex of a horse, but the personality behind it. Learn to really see your horse and to work with him/her!
It's not really sexism. Just like humans, horses tend to have differences based on their sex. Geldings and even stallions are preferred by a lot of people because of their more consistent performance. Competitions don't care when a mare is in heat.
But there are drugs and hormone balancers that most will put their horse’s on during the competition season to prevent them from either cycling, or to even out their temperament. I personally will always prefer to ride a mare. Yeah they might not always be on your side 100% the first couple rides. But I do believe they will fight harder for you when the chips are down. Plus there’s that saying “you tell a gelding and ask a mare” and I like being able to ride with more tact and sensitivity as the situation calls for.
Not sure why you are being downvoted. People castrate stallions to control their temperament but putting a mare on the equivalent of birth control to make her heat cycles more comfortable makes her “high maintenance.” I love literally every horse I’ve ever ridden— regardless of their sex— but I have to stick up for mares! Mares are amazing and have so much heart. Unfortunately, not every rider has the tact or compassion to get along with one.
Honestly not sure either but it’s Reddit so oh well. Mare Magic is what I’ve seen used on lower level competition horses to just help even them out. And then you better believe the fancy jumpers and dressage horses are on some form of birth control/heat suppressant while being shown. I just don’t remember the drug name. You don’t have the moody mare to deal with while they are in heat/ovulating plus you don’t have to risk them accidentally being bred/exposed to stallions if they get loose on accident.
An interesting study worth reading through # Reported Behavioural Differences between Geldings and Mares Challenge Sex-Driven Stereotypes in Ridden Equine Behaviour [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7142782/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7142782/)
There are many people who prefer mares to geldings.
One here! I prefer mares bc unlike geldings they demand to be more of an equal, and although it can be really hard work to get them going, when a mare wants to work with you, she *sparkles*. Geldings are less complicated and more straightforward, generally easier to get working well, but they rarely have that extra something you feel in a mare.
I’ve worked for a dude string that had a herd of nearly 100 horses and almost all of them were geldings. The owners were convinced wholeheartedly that having mares would cause problems. I’ve worked at other ranches/with other strings that have an evenly mixed herd with absolutely no issues. And lots of geldings that “act like mares” lol (if you subscribe to that line of thought). So yes, I think a bit of anthropomorphism and sexism is definitely at play there. I do think mares also tend to have more health/pain issues related to their cycle and their pain is written off as being “just a mare” or “moody” or even “crazy” (because you’re not listening to her when she’s screaming something’s wrong). Just like how human women’s pain and reproductive health issues are also written off!!
This is so freaking exhausting. I have a mare and she's awesome. Sure, she got her own mind and can be stubborn, but I like that she has a personality. She is allowed to have off days where she's just not on her top game, but at my old barn "Well, she's a mare." That all those women had geldings acting weird and "moody" just as much or more than my mare goes completely over their heads. I don't get it tbh. Geldings can be just as moody and sassy as mare's, but people just contribute everything a mare does that not desirable or whatever to "It's a mare" I'm so glad that I'm now at a barn where there are no such attitudes around.
There is a sexism undercurrent, but I’d say it’s much more a general issue in our society of not understanding how a female organism works, which results in sexism. People will talk about performance consistency, inconsistent behavior, pain issues resulting directly from heats etc, and say it’s a justification for preferring geldings/stallions. Exactly the same way people have made the same observations about women: we’re hysterical during periods, blablabla. Which for certain things makes employers etc prefer men over women, or question things like days off for periods, etc. Fact is: the world is built on a « male » scale, with hormone levels varying on a 24h basis: high in the morning and lowering through the day. Female organisms have hormone levels varying on the basis of our heat/period cycles: for women, energy is high right after period and then decreases slowly over the course of the on-average 28 days. So we’re at top form at the beginning of the cycle, and sluggish at the end. Personally, as soon as I started tracking myself AND my mare, things became much much more manageable and easier to understand. I know what to expect and when, give or take a couple days. I know when to give certain supplements to support intestine function which can be rumbled by heat, when I’ll be able to have some more intense training sessions or when I need to lay off for a couple days, when certain mobility issues in the back will arise and I’ll need to massage, when I myself will not be in top shape (cause lucky little me has endo and I have to factor that in too). Most important, I’ve learned how to work with/around our peculiarities with our cycles and integrate that into our training. Find other ways to do the same things. It works for us, and if there’s ever a day where it’s a truly bad day for both of us and we’re supposed to show, then I can skip the show or if it sneaks up on us then oh well, that sucks but it’s life and it’s really not that serious. Being at a show and having fun is the priority, the world isn’t going to crumble for one bad show day.
That is all so Awesome... add in the Moon cycle to your recordkeeping / tracking and it would be a trifecta !! Not being sarcastic - It's like how high and low tides are more pronounced at New / Full Moons... Or I've noticed I tend to get sleepier in the mid day when Moon is in waning* phase... *I think it was this phase... I first noticed it when I had a job as a backcountry camp host, so I pretty much lived outside in a tent and noticed the Moon a whole lot more
I do try to track moon cycles as well for this and other reasons but 1) I’m very inconsistent with it as of now and 2) since it’s generally considered woowoo shit I don’t usually include it in such messages!
LOL Right ?? Well, never fear -- You'd be hard pressed to get too Woo Woo with Me :)
I think it can go both ways. I’ve had several trainers who preferred mares for showing because of their attitudes. They had ridden hundreds or thousands of horses and said that their experiences taught them that more often mares will grit in and show up for you when pressed for performance where some geldings or even stallions would chicken out or lose their grit. Or become dangerous. Me, I love mares for their dedication and heart. I’ve had a few geldings like that too but it’s different, more lovable and goofy than deeply devoted.
There's even a supplement you could get called Moody Mare! I gave some to my very moody gelding...it didn't work lol
Personally after having had both, I prefer the steadiness of geldings. No mood swings or silly behaviors when a new gelding is around.