Well welcome to the club,
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I wanted to say something along these lines, but you said it quite well!
I donāt dismiss that mares can have pain or issues related to their cycles or reproductive system. I do think there is the possibility that it is āover diagnosedā but I still canāt join the club that dismisses that entirely as if it couldnāt be a thing at all. Thatās just foolish.
However, if someone blames the mareās hest cycle as a cause of discomfort and misbehavior and puts the mare on Regumate and sees a positive change, then I would think that points to it being a āreproductive issueā
I will say I only know of Regumate and giving mares other supplements for their heat cycles from this board. Iāve never heard of it here (Germany and the UK) before. Nor do I know anyone thatās giving their mare anything specifically related to āmare issuesā This is just my personal experience though. A bit skewed as people mostly post when they have an issue or problem (so itās mentioned more) that needs solving and the population of mare owners on COTH might exceed who Iāve encountered in real life, but I donāt think so. Then again I do see a lot of horses obviously uncomfortable or even unsound just āpushed through itā because it must be a training issue and the mind set is a bit archaic here.
I also donāt like when people project their feelings onto a horse as they donāt process things and feel emotion the same way a human does. I think we can accept that animals do feel pain though, and sometimes similar to what a human might feel (the eye poking thing). To not accept that isā¦strange.
Again, I would deal with it on a case by case basis. Just because I have a mare thatās never needed any pain relief, other meds, or supplements in her life doesnāt mean that negates the experience of others. Iām not so arrogant to think that way. Itās close minded, quite frankly. If youāve never had any of these experiences, consider yourself lucky, respect that others are trying to find their way and do best by the horse and stop being derogatory toward them.
If I ever by another horse I am leaning heavily toward a mare because I seem to work better better them. Not sure why. I will say it is a bit harder to find ridden PRE mares, although itās much more common now, as they were typically used for breeding only. So the odds of me ending up with a stallion or gelding were greater when I was shopping for my PRE unless I wanted something not started under saddle. I am seeing a lot more out and about and ridden now though.
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The point is not to say that menstrual pain is the SAME as cyclical pain but anyone who has seen an angry, wall-kicking, biting mare in heat turn into her usual self shortly after receiving Banamine can get that heat cycles and menses can make people and horses uncomfortable and that drugs actually work and itās not in our collective female mind.
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Iāve never thought to equate a mareās pinned back ears to my menstrual cramps. Just wouldnāt occur to me. (come on, you know that mares donāt bleed) And the poke in the eye on you is poke in the eye to me concept someone described works fine for pokes in the eye.
When i see/smell a mareās estrous urine and see her trot around, head and tail up, pee and wink her vulva what i see is āBREEEEED ME~!!ā Thatās the main estrus-related behavior i observe in my mares. Maybe a mare could be testy with a human if she thinks that person is standing in between her and some stallion somewhereā¦but if your barn doesnāt allow stallions, then this is not whatās going on.
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My .02,
I have owned many mares, all individual personalities and most were wonderful. Some sensitive, some stoic, some whose behavior was indistinguisable from geldings, INCLUDING a chestnut mare. I also had a chestnut TB mare that was the embodiment of the stereotype, and handling and riding her required tact and diplomacy that she repaid tenfold with spectacular performance. Just like my wonderful, sensitive bay TB gelding. They required exactly the same kind of handling and ride; but the mareās behavior got labeled āmarish.ā
I believe in segragated turn out 80% of the time. Itās not the mares that are the problem, usually, itās that the geldings get stupid about the mares and constantly challenge the herd dynamic to get closer to the mares. But I have known stable mixed herds that worked perfectly fine. Once again, highly individual to the horses and situation. I have all geldings at the moment because my beloved retired gelding suddenly imagines himself a stallion and a Lothario in the presence of mares and gets super stoopid. When heās over the rainbow bridge Iād certainly consider another mare. For emphasis: my problem with mares currently is THE GELDINGāS BEHAVIOR.
I also rode and showed a clientās mare who had genuine pain and distress related to ovulation. She had had a full repro workup and had been bred and had a foal. The poor mare could not be ridden during ovulation, she couldnāt tolerate being groomed over her flanks and couldnāt tolerate the riderās leg on her side or working at the canter. The owner reported that having her palpated prior to being bred was a nightmare because she was SO sore and in so much pain she threatened to lay down in the palpation chute.
Keeping her on Regumate was a kindness. We tried going through one cycle without it and I was immediately convinced. She was a totally different horse, when, you know, she wasnāt in pain.
Do people use Regumate indiscriminately to try to solve behavior problems? Well, sure. But I donāt understand the rush to judgement. People also use every supplement under the sun: Moody Mare, Mare Magic, Perfect Prep, Mag Sulphate, GABA, etc., etc. to moderate behavior. Plently of people even use Ace routinely for behavior, which I think is ridiculous, but there it is. And letās not forget the people who attempt to moderate behavior with bigger bits, controlling nosebands, head setting devices and spurs. If giving their mare Regumate makes the owner/rider believe their horse is more managable and calm, I donāt have a problem with that. A lot of drugs and supplements given to horses work because of the placebo effect ON THE OWNER. Regumate is fairly benign compared to a lot of the other crap out there. Iād rather see the mare given Regumate than any of the other āsolutionsā listed in this paragraph.
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This exactly. I didnāt say it was the SAME, I said pain during cycles is a real issue for some mares and it is both weird to deny that and not fair to such a mare to deny treatment that would make her comfortable. My mares are not like that but some are.
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Mares have other estrogen-producing tissue in their bodies. So a spayed mare can still have behavior related to hormones.
It is interesting that there was not a lot of questioning/commentary about this particular mareās training/living/feeding situation.
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I considered suggesting 24/7 turnout, but the OP says sheās in training with a GP trainer so thatās probably not gonna happen.
And I was too annoyed by the question in the threadās title to bother.
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IF (letās just say if) a horse is in turnout/shed arenāt ātrainersā able to go collect horses? Not like theyāre on a hundred acres or anything.
Of course they could.
But a lot donāt.
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huh. When i was exercising horses i had to go collect them from wherever they were. Sometimes it took some walking! But i was younger then, and hungry for work so i was willing to do anything to get a good ride. Plus there is the humility-factor. I was not ātoo goodā to do anything if it came to horses! If i were to train other peopleās horses now, iād charge by the minute to go get one if it routinely took too long. edit: but iād be willing to do it.
In my area 24/7 turnout may not be possible since there is generally not enough land to support it. Land in my area is expensive. This time of year it is muddy. If they are out on it 24/7 the field gets trashed. If they are out 24/7 in the summer they overgraze it. During the height of the summer it too hot and they prefer to be inside with the fans anyway.
It seems to be more common that GP trainers turn horses out as individual turn-out not group turn-out to prevent injuries. So less likely to have run-in sheds as you would need more of them.
It frequently isnāt a matter of going to collect the horse.
I would think it is less likely you will find a GP rider in a truly rural low cost area where land prices are cheap as that would put them far from clients and from shows.
I am also not sure how fair it is if a horse is used to being out 24/7, then goes to a show and expected to be in a stall 24/7 except when being ridden/hand walked for almost week. I think that having them more used to being in a stall a portion of the day may be less stressful and less likely to cause ulcers.
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@SonnysMom has the most likely correct reasons - most of the GP trainers I know arenāt even the ones grabbing/grooming/tacking their own horses - they have grooms and/or working students.
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As someone who has had RBF (resting bitch face) since grade school, Iāve never been terribly bothered by ear pinning. (Unless itās unusual for that particular horse.) Since no one from my barn is on COTH, I can say, that when Iām on the mare I ride, I truthfully appreciate the mare face of death when people ride too close to me in the arena.
That being said, I currently ride a mare and a gelding, and although every horse is an individual, Iāve felt that the mares Iāve ridden tend to pick up any residual stress and tension Iāve had that day (even if it has nothing to do with riding). Iāve also found mare reactivity to be more unpredictable. Iāve known very spooky geldings, but what they will spook at tends to be more expected (as in āhe doesnāt like the indoor at nightā or āhe hates going over waterā). And the difficult geldings are, well, predictably difficult about certain things, or everything.
I donāt consider the mare I ride complicated, for example, but one winter, she went through a period of spooking very violently at things that had never bothered her before, and one day had a meltdown about a very innocuous-looking table in an arena corner, I couldnāt even get on her for the hour, she was so afraid. Almost every mare Iāve ridden has had at least a few rides where I was like, āwhere did that come fromā? But Iām still riding her, and sheās been fine this winter, with no real change in her routine.
If I was looking for a horse for myself, much as I do like the mare Iām currently on, I would probably prefer a ādonāt need to worry about the snow sliding from the indoorā gelding. But hey, horses arenāt machines, and neither am I, and weāre all entitled to an off day. Sensitivity and being eager to please also has its benefits.
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and so do males
You appear to be saying here that if removing ovaries does not change behavior, then the behavior is not hormonal.
I am saying that mares have other tissues that produce estrogen, and so hormonal based behaviors can continue even after ovaries are removed.
The other confounding element to throw in here is that the spay procedure can create adhesions, so one source of pain is replaced by another.
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Personally Iām not sure itās fair to keep them in stalls 12-22+ hours everyday whether theyāre at home or at a show, but thatās been debated a million times over in other threads.
Anecdotally, my already-spooky-mare had no change in her stalled-at-shows behavior after going from being stalled 12+ hours at home to out 24/7 at home, and sheās a heck of a lot happier now at home.
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Yes, non-ovarian estrogen is produced by body fat, adrenal glands and other tissues (including placenta), but not in large amounts. The estrogen that would be present in a mare without ovaries would be, without some pathology, the same as that in a male. Mares do not have some magic reserve or alternate source of large estrogen amounts.
I would not be surprised to find that mares with no ovaries have lower levels of estrogen than intact males, as the testes produce estrogen. In humans, men can have more estrogen that a postmenopausal woman.
Let me just say that I never used Regumate on my mare when I was showing her. I also boarded her the entire time I was showing her and wasnāt aware of much problem behavior. I retired her from showing in 2018 and bought a small farm. When I moved her home, I started seeing the behaviorāsquealing and kicking walls (for things like not being fed first, or a horse looking at her when she was resting). I then bought some weanling colts and put her on Regumate initially to prevent pregnancy (although I gelded the first colt when he was 9 months old), but then saw the marish behavior diminish and realized it would be safer for all around if I just kept her on Regumate. So I did. I never noticed any difference under saddle. The difference I noticed was: no squatting and peeing, very little squealing and wall kicking. She still does bossy mare things. But the whole time I was showing her, I never knew when she was in season and her back was always pretty soft. What I absolutely dislike about riding a mare, this one and another one I had, was the bossy taking over that you never could predict. I have no idea if that was hormonally related since I didnāt have her on Regumate then, but I will say ALL of the geldings I have back right off when you make a correction. My mares, noāand even with tact, or light pleading and beggingāsometimes you just had to say āNot today, Satanā and wave out.
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Yes, please to considering the mareās management!
Again, with my dragon/soldier mare. Being boarded, she spent a lot of time being next to horses she didnāt dig, not being turned out enough, not being able to touch other horses as she choseā¦ the list goes on and on.
BOs just wanted her to fit into their program. I wanted mare-head to be in a barn with good care (in a pretty mediocre market), so I tried to be the compliant owner who was willing to fix any problem my animal caused. Tried the repro exam. Even tried Regumate. It made little difference. Requests to switch stalls were surprisingly rebuffed. Thatās weird because it seemed to me to be the least invasive solution. In any case, I moved (across the country) and had her boarded at a nice family farm with 24/7 TO. That was a whole lot better. She finally moved in with a gelding, whom she put right in his place without touching him in 5 minutes, and is now a very happy camper. They lie down together, graze together and like each other. My mare also likes the pony mare who lived across the fence from her and her boyfriend.
What makes me sad is how much of a mareās āproblemā comes from her merely having an unsolved problem. Itās not fair to have their 23/7 life be crappy because we canāt run our farms in a way that suits them. Rather, we only care about that one hour a day of work. I just think itās (ethically) asking too much of an animal who gets no choice to just suck it up with bad management for so much of their life.
Perhaps we cannot solve every last management problem to a mareās complete satisfaction. But I think we can solve 90% of them if we commit to it. Really, I donāt think animals are pissy without cause. Their emotional meter goes back to zero when anger or defensiveness is no longer needed. We should think of ourselves as hotel managers and the animals we keep caged up and working for us as our high-end guests.
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