I have a mare that is starting to run out of options to start settling into being happy as a working horse. She had some sort of “bad training” when she was 6, after receiving a good start. Even now, at 10, she is “extremely alert” despite 2 years of working on mellow.
So now we (my vet and I) are starting to get towards our last few options. She’s about to start 3 months of reserpine to knock the edge off of her and hopefully help her find comfort in work rather than tensing her back at the thought that I MIGHT do something that she’s not comfortable with.
But I’ve also had people suggest breeding her, as no one in her family behaves this way in fact her sire’s side tends to be a bit more mellow and her mother doesn’t work harder than she has too… ever (although used to have a buck in her when she was asked to work harder than she thought she should have to). Now my mare’s dam is by Gaylord out of a TB mare.
I guess the worst part is that she is twisting her hind end all out of whack because she gets so tense, so she is LITERALLY all bent out of shape.
So I guess the real question, does breeding really mellow out the mare? I wouldn’t breed this mare if I didn’t think she would produce rideable offspring. Her behavior on the ground is pretty normal, she’s sweet and calm although can be very alert at times. It’s mostly when she is being asked to work that she becomes more of an unhappy horse.
I figured I’d ask here because you all have more experience breeding.
The old saying is “breed the best to the best and hope for the best”!! They also say - don’t breed if you would be unhappy with a clone of your mare!! Have you tried her on Regumate or other hormone therapy?? If you breed…you might just end up with TWO, Unhappy, Alert horses!! Just a thought
I have a similar mare, with similar bloodlines on the Swedish side. She was a PIA. She was WONDERFUL to ride when she was pregnant. I got most of the good training on her when she was (up to PSG.) I got her really messed up and hard to ride at 8. I bred her within six months and she had two babies in three years, and went from a badly greenbroke horse to PSG.
I tried Regumate with her, and it didn’t help.
She made FABULOUS babies and is now being a schoolmaster for two sponsors while I bring the babies up the levels.
I’ve seen it work for an aggressive mare. The mare was pushy, dominant, and a kicker. While I saw her get ugly with her baby a handful of times as baby got older and wanted to be in the food dish, but for the most part, having a baby helped to mellow her. Once the baby got older. :lol: For the first few months, I have no doubt in my mind that given the chance she would very seriously hurt someone. Also we had to wait 2 months to breed her back because she tried to kill the stallion on her foal and first heat.
This was also a mare that nothing was done with. No riding, no grooming. Just turn in/turn out. So as long as she could contain herself for the 5 minutes it took to get her in her stall, we were golden.
Long story short, I probably wouldn’t if it were a horse you actually use.
I don’t believe in the ‘myth’ as far as breeding such a mare will calm her down but by breeding her and giving her time off from riding you might end up with a more mature horse. Personally I find that many horses ‘mature’ once they hit double digit age and are in a better mindset to handle the demands of real work. Having said that I was given a mare with old and decent bloodlines (for my breed of choice). She was labeled as crazy and dangerous. I got her here and started working with her and even showed her at training level (with good scores) just to make sure she was trainable and rideable. She never set a foot wrong. I bred her (to my stallion) and got two stellar foals out of her and she’s now back in the dressage arena getting in shape for showing. She has gone back to work as if she’s been ridden all along. She does seems calmer than before but as stated I never did see the extremes in her behavior that her previous owners did. She’s also three years older than she was the last time I was in the saddle on her.
If you breed them, they essentially get two years older before you try riding them again. Older = calmer. You could probably throw her out in the pasture for the same amount of time and achieve the same result without the expense.
[QUOTE=crosscreeksh;7910565]
The old saying is “breed the best to the best and hope for the best”!! They also say - don’t breed if you would be unhappy with a clone of your mare!! Have you tried her on Regumate or other hormone therapy?? If you breed…you might just end up with TWO, Unhappy, Alert horses!! Just a thought[/QUOTE]
This , while breeding her might settle her she may also pass on that personality trait.
I will agree however as an above poster mentioned I do have one mare that being bred significantly mellows her personality. She is an alpha bold and hot mare , not mean quite sweet actually but defiantly hot. When bred almost instantly she is quiet , tractable and mellow as a school pony. She has however passed on her temperament to all her colts, they are forward thinking work horses who need to be kept busy or they will find their own entertainment. :yes:
If your goal is to get more good training miles on her and it’s believed to be hormonal perhaps breeding will help (there are chemical alternatives Depo and regumate ) but only if you would be happy to have another just like her. If you think her issues are due to just bad training/ experience perhaps the offspring started correctly with you wouldn’t struggle.
I have a mare that came to me being very hard to deal with under saddle due to some very bad training. She was hot and very reactive and the second she thought you were going to ask something that she didn’t want to do she would have a total meltdown. She was great to handle on the ground though stand-offish. She is a mare that I myself adored but that I would never wish on my worst enemy. We had worked through most of our issues undersaddle but no one besides had earned her trust when I decided to breed her. I picked her first stallion based on temperament alone, though he was on the smaller side. I have a coming 4 year old that I broke last year that is going to be the most super pony in the world but that I don’t think will grow over the pony mark, so he is too small for me to keep for myself. He is a complete joy to be around and was born with his father’s mind and personality. This mare has had 3 foals for me and she is now alot more settled and others can ride her without me worrying that she is going to have a meltdown. I knew that her issues were all man made and breeding her really settled her down
If you think she’s “extremely alert” now, just wait until she has a foal at foot.
We’ve found that breeding an extremely quiet, laid-back mare could actually make her anxious after the foal was born. NOW she had something to look after and worry about…she started to be concerned about her immediate environment…perfectly natural. That does not sound like a good combination if you’re trying to teach a horse to be LESS reactive.
Bad training may have made her worse, but it’s more than likely she had this sort of personality from the start. Personally, I would not breed any mare if I was less than satisfied with her temperment.
I think man made vs personality is a big question - I wouldn’t breed a mare with a poor temperament, but I also like sensitive horses who can in result have a poor temperament with the wrong training. If my gelding were a mare I wouldn’t hesitate to breed him, because he has a lot of human-made temperament issues, but I love his innate personality which is sometimes more prevalent than others.
My mare has a fabulous temperament, but has physical discomfort during her heat cycles. I’ve had my vet plus two repro vets all tell me they think her heat problems will disappear with age, but also that breeding her would likely speed the process. If she had a rotten temperament in general, I wouldn’t even consider it - but since she’s been amazing to work with and just what I hoped for, breeding her is on the table - with risks to her health the reason I am hesitant.
[QUOTE=Go Fish;7911325]
Bad training may have made her worse, but it’s more than likely she had this sort of personality from the start. Personally, I would not breed any mare if I was less than satisfied with her temperment.[/QUOTE]
I knew her as a foal, I’ve worked with her half brother (same mom) and know her mother quite well. The only one I don’t know well is the half sister. My sister helped start this horse before the “bad training” and her personality wasn’t sooo reactive. I do enjoy a sensitive horse as I’m small and don’t like having to kick and flail for every inch of effort by a horse. This mare was more like a young sensitive horse, was pretty easy going but sensitive under saddle. She didn’t, however, over react under saddle until AFTER the bad training. She is a hot horse, very sweet, an in-your-pocket type, but just can’t relax.
She definitely sounds like your mare, hot and very reactive. We’ve fortunately gotten beyond the melt-down phase but I still can’t convince her to give me her back.
[QUOTE=Lynnwood;7910962]I will agree however as an above poster mentioned I do have one mare that being bred significantly mellows her personality. She is an alpha bold and hot mare , not mean quite sweet actually but defiantly hot. When bred almost instantly she is quiet , tractable and mellow as a school pony. She has however passed on her temperament to all her colts, they are forward thinking work horses who need to be kept busy or they will find their own entertainment. :yes:
If your goal is to get more good training miles on her and it’s believed to be hormonal perhaps breeding will help (there are chemical alternatives Depo and regumate ) but only if you would be happy to have another just like her. If you think her issues are due to just bad training/ experience perhaps the offspring started correctly with you wouldn’t struggle.[/QUOTE]
I’m really not sure, beyond “terrible training”. She does blow right through depo in her cycles, and I can’t use daily regumate as children under 18 feed my horse and I don’t want them near the stuff if especially if I don’t want to be near the stuff. I haven’t seen efficacy studies on the injectable version.
I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t wind up with one nearly as reactive as herself, she wasn’t this over reactive before the “bad training”.
She already spent two years between the time she came back from the trainer and the time I purchased her, chilling at the farm doing pretty much nothing.
She’s been checked for most things. She is a known ulcer horse so I monitor her for her “usual”, he again thinks this is from the tension issue: pain causes ulcers cause stress and stress causes tension (one of her vicious cycles, but we try to keep the ulcers out of it or she starts threatening to rear). She was flexed and fully palpated and she palpates out to her muscles around her pelvis and not directly to her back or SI. She holds her chiro for two months except for her pelvis rotation. He doesn’t think it’s a cyst as it’s not “back pain”, it’s pain over her pelvic region that doesn’t extend very far into her loin region. It extends all the way out to her point of hip and all the way down over the point of butt (more so on the left side; her weaker side).
[QUOTE=Beentheredonethat;7910571]I have a similar mare, with similar bloodlines on the Swedish side. She was a PIA. She was WONDERFUL to ride when she was pregnant. I got most of the good training on her when she was (up to PSG.) I got her really messed up and hard to ride at 8. I bred her within six months and she had two babies in three years, and went from a badly greenbroke horse to PSG.
I tried Regumate with her, and it didn’t help.
She made FABULOUS babies and is now being a schoolmaster for two sponsors while I bring the babies up the levels.[/QUOTE]
Haha “really messed up and hard to ride at 8” sounds like my mare. I was told that my mare might be “ruined” thanks to the bad trainer.
I would usually agree with this statement, but her temperament before this trainer was much more agreeable. I would be more than happy to have her how she was before this trainer, carbon copy.
She cycles right through depo without any symptom reduction. But it’s winter, she’s in anestrus, that should make her easier to work with but there is no change.
[QUOTE=netg;7911467]I think man made vs personality is a big question - I wouldn’t breed a mare with a poor temperament, but I also like sensitive horses who can in result have a poor temperament with the wrong training. If my gelding were a mare I wouldn’t hesitate to breed him, because he has a lot of human-made temperament issues, but I love his innate personality which is sometimes more prevalent than others.
My mare has a fabulous temperament, but has physical discomfort during her heat cycles. I’ve had my vet plus two repro vets all tell me they think her heat problems will disappear with age, but also that breeding her would likely speed the process. If she had a rotten temperament in general, I wouldn’t even consider it - but since she’s been amazing to work with and just what I hoped for, breeding her is on the table - with risks to her health the reason I am hesitant.[/QUOTE]
My mare has a fantastic personality. She’s sweet and tends to win over everyone. She’s the in-your-pocket type. She’s not dominant and is a social butterfly. She is sensitive on the ground but fairly agreeable and never straight-up disagrees.
Under saddle, on the other hand, she is tense and nervous and over reacts. Her way of going is to be in front of the leg but behind the bit and takes a lot of coaxing to get her to push into the bridle without curling down onto the bit. She goes at, what I would consider, a lengthen at the trot and canter and gets tense resistant if asked to slow down as if I’m about to sit the trot or really sit the canter in a manner to hurt her. She’s pretty responsive to the upper leg but I cannot use my seat. I cannot sit her trot at all, and I can only lightly sit her canter.
She still tries but she just won’t relax, won’t take a breath, won’t slow down. It’s a struggle for her and I really just want her to enjoy the work to develop the muscles so she can do the fun stuff.
I wouldn’t mind having her with a blank slate, being involved from the start to produce a better outcome. She’s not unrideable or mean, or unpredictable; she just get’s all bent out of shape about work because of the baggage she came with.
Any research to back that up? My mare is on a small dose once a day. I thought it was only known for penile paralysis, which I don’t have to worry about with a mare.
A good horse has to be able to handle pressure, and it sounds like this mare can’t do it.
The looks, the movement, the ability, are all worthless without the mind. You said she was a good youngster before the “bad trainer”, but I’ve seen a lot of the textbook "good " young horses totally fall apart mentally when it came time to really work. They do everything right at first but then start having all kinds of problems down the road. A competitive career or even a moderately demanding job as a riding horse is a lot to ask, not all of them are going to be cut out for it. Unfortunately, inability to handle the pressure seems to be heriditary.
[QUOTE=Angelico;7912549]
A good horse has to be able to handle pressure, and it sounds like this mare can’t do it.
The looks, the movement, the ability, are all worthless without the mind. You said she was a good youngster before the “bad trainer”, but I’ve seen a lot of the textbook "good " young horses totally fall apart mentally when it came time to really work. They do everything right at first but then start having all kinds of problems down the road. A competitive career or even a moderately demanding job as a riding horse is a lot to ask, not all of them are going to be cut out for it. Unfortunately, inability to handle the pressure seems to be heriditary.[/QUOTE]
This horse was a super easy start, could WTC under saddle before the “trainer” and showed no sign of “breaking”. Can you point to any of her genetics that would predispose her to being unable to handle pressure?
Her sire is known for producing quiet offspring, in fact the vet I use has a stallion by the same sire who is a mellow dude. Her dam has produced two other horses, both of which have gone on to be nice competitive horses under better trainers.
Her genetics are sound, the training was not. This was not a reputable trainer, it was someone that was supposed to be working under the supervision of a reputable trainer. But said reputable trainer also has a penchant for just not showing up (whether it’s a bi-polar issue or something else, consistency was not her thing), so the trainer had plenty of unsupervised time working the green horse.
To go from a horse that could make contact with the bit and move forward to a horse that was hollow and running and behind the bit and tense in just a few months is not a matter of the horse not handling the pressure.
That’s also an asinine way of thinking of it. Some horses can be pushed harder than others. It takes a good trainer to know the difference. Some you have to nurse along and coax into everything and they take years to develop into a decent riding horse. Other horses meet your expectations and ask for more and you have to know when to slow down and make sure the horse REALLY understands what you are talking about before you keep going.
Saying it’s the horse’s fault it cracked under the pressure is just… no.
It’s like a kid not knowing how to tie their shoes and then yelling at them repeatedly and expecting them to figure it out and calling them “unfit” if they start crying instead.
[QUOTE=Angelico;7912549]
A good horse has to be able to handle pressure, and it sounds like this mare can’t do it.
The looks, the movement, the ability, are all worthless without the mind. You said she was a good youngster before the “bad trainer”, but I’ve seen a lot of the textbook "good " young horses totally fall apart mentally when it came time to really work. They do everything right at first but then start having all kinds of problems down the road. A competitive career or even a moderately demanding job as a riding horse is a lot to ask, not all of them are going to be cut out for it. Unfortunately, inability to handle the pressure seems to be heriditary.[/QUOTE]
See, I have no interest in the horses with the type of temperament and you can push and push and nothing ever bothers them. Because they also tend to be the horses who don’t learn quickly and offer and just volunteer you excellence if handled well. It sounds like the OP is the same way.
Certainly some people want a horse they can just push, and that horse will be easier for just about anyone to get on and ride. But that’s not the type of horse some of us want, and a horse who won’t take that isn’t a bad horse.
Given I like a lot of blood, I can only imagine the kinds of meltdowns my horses could have if pushed too much in a way that didn’t make sense to them. My filly will drill all day long if I want to keep going because she has learned the release that means she’s doing what she’s supposed to - so in lessons if I need to work on something I’m doing wrong, she will just keep giving and giving, and honestly giving me whatever answer seems right at the time. She has shown no tendency to get tired of working and loves getting out to work, is fine to ride after weeks off with no hesitation about getting on from me because she’s just good. But put her with the wrong person, as she’s a sensitive type who tries, and she’d melt down.
I think the fact you know this horse from before tells you a lot of what you need to know. I wouldn’t necessarily expect breeding to help her, but it sounds like you’d enjoy the offspring anyway…
[QUOTE=Angelico;7912549]
A good horse has to be able to handle pressure, and it sounds like this mare can’t do it.
The looks, the movement, the ability, are all worthless without the mind. You said she was a good youngster before the “bad trainer”, but I’ve seen a lot of the textbook "good " young horses totally fall apart mentally when it came time to really work. They do everything right at first but then start having all kinds of problems down the road. A competitive career or even a moderately demanding job as a riding horse is a lot to ask, not all of them are going to be cut out for it. Unfortunately, inability to handle the pressure seems to be heriditary.[/QUOTE]
I think this also applies more to work at the upper levels - not all horses (as I understand it) can take the pressure of the more difficult work, such as that needed for the FEI levels.
EVERY young horse, if trained correctly, should be able to do solid basic work (eg. 2nd level+). The inability to handle pressure should not be a factor in a horse’s early/basic training. If not, to me, that is a training issue, not an inherent issue I would blame on the horse’s temperament.
Pregnancy can, indeed, take the edge off of many mares. Which is why I have often bred hot-ish mares in the year I plan to start them under saddle. It’s a subtle difference, but enough for me.
Having a foal also makes them a little less oversensitive and “goosey,” since they have to get used to having the foal poking them all over.
