I had this happen when I moved my gelding and had to stay a week at a friend’s place, before a stall opened up with my trainer. He was with 2 other geldings and a mare. OMG did the stud like behavior come out. We actually had to give him a 1/2 cc of ace as he was breaking the stall door down. Totally uncharacteristic. I had labs done and they were negative. It was just a blip, accompanied by being turned out all together :eek:
Is there not anyone at the barn who can help you? no experienced horse person?
This is obviously not something that you can handle safely on your own, and not really an issue that can be solved by advice from afar.
If there is a COTHer near the OP, perhaps some advice on local help is in order.
Be careful OP. Since you are on your own with this horse, you are wise not to ride him.
Until you find an experienced person to look at the situation and determine if your gelding is actually improperly gelded (unlikely) or, is over excited, and taking advantage of your inexperience with randy geldings (more likely), please be careful. :yes:
1 Like
The horses at my barn go out in a mixed herd and I’ve never had this problem. Is it possible he’s proud cut or was maybe gelded very late? I agree with finding someone who can help you. Even stallions have to behave when worked near mares.
3 Likes
Thank you for your input 
looks like I’ll be calling the vet!
Ditto having the vet draw a little blood and check the testosterone level…could be a ridgling. I once owned a suspected ridgling - he had to mark EVERYONE’s poop & pee in the field, ring, etc. He was pretty well behaved most of the time and respectful of the stallion shank.
My current gelding is a beefy hunk of boy who wasn’t cut until he was 6. He gets confused, thinks he’s still got the equipment…he can be a handful and he WILL throw his considerable size around. I’m too old for nonsense and regularly handle him with the stallion shank. BUT he’s pretty well behaved.
As someone said already - you are wise not to get on when your boy is wound up like this. Find someone close by who is REPUTABLE & LEGIT to help you. The wrong person can make this worse. Best of luck as you work this out. Be safe!
I dunno, my vets all say they have done hundreds of tests and found only a handful of hormonal problems from improper or late castration.
Most of those issues are training related and lack of ground manners. Most geldings will smell and notice a mare showing hard in close by but do as expected and trained if properly handled.
Some use Depo on geldings that still seem too interested but that won’t replace good training.
2 Likes
I think this is just a management/training issue. This doesn’t sound like overly studdish behaviour. If he was proud cut he’d be doing more than screaming and pacing the fence shared with the mares. 
I would move him away from the mares, until hormones settle down as spring winds down. He’ll probably be loopy for a while; just do your best to refocus his attention on you and he’ll come back to Earth.
Try putting some Vick’s Vapor Rub on the inside of his nostrils. Sometimes this helps the stallions not react to the mares because they can’t smell them.
It’s something easy and cheap to try and see if it makes a difference.
We had a stallion that we used it on when he was breeding a lot of mares in the spring. It allowed him to stay focused on the riding when he wasn’t breeding.
He was not ill behaved with the mares, just a lot less focused if he could smell mares in heat and this kept him directed to the job at hand.
1 Like
Yep, Vicks and a stud shank.
My vet says of these guys “they need to be gelded between the ears” best thing I’ve ever heard!
I have one like this, and the best thing I found for him was getting him into routine work. He moved to the new place with new ladies, and lost his mind. Putting him on a longe and working him helped refocus him a bit, and eventually he got over the ‘holy crap I have to be away from them for a whole hour???’ panic moments he was having. Find someone nearby who can help you while you work with him! Good luck and stay safe!
I think others have already given great advice but I did want to add that he might just need some time. Moving can be a big adjustment, as is being exposed to mares the first time, etc. He may just need some time and space to get used it it all. Especially if he are not accustomed to travel or new environments.
I agree, the move may be just as much (or more) of a factor than the presence of mares.
Many TBs are gelded later in life and it can for sure be an issue. However, it usually isn’t such an extreme thing…instead there might be a studdish moment passing a mare in heat walking down the aisle, some longing looks over a fence, and sometimes aggressive/rough behavior with other geldings that necessitates private turnout. I have colts/stallions on my farm and none of them carry on the way you describe, so my best guess is that this is more of a behavior and move related issue rather than hormonal.
1 Like
[QUOTE=kmwines01;7575641]
It wouldn’t hurt to get him hormone tested to rule out any remnants before trying behavioral modification. If he was gelded late or used for breeding at some point, it may have a behavioral component. But worth it to rule out medical before frustrating yourself with behavior stuff when it’s medical underneath it all and you make no headway.[/QUOTE]
I am a COTHER that would advise this too. I had a horse that was fine until I moved him and then became very stallion like. I had the vet out for something unrelated to the stallion behavior and she even thought he was acting like a stallion. So I had tests done and he had high testosterone levels and a hormone that only mares and stallions have. I had laproscopic surgery done and he had testicular tissue inside.
He’s fine now.
My 23 Oldenburg gelding has been with geldings and I just moved him to a new all pasture farm. He was ok and would greet me at the gate for his grain, I’d groom him, ride him etc. then we added another gelding and mare and he’s gone psycho. I don’t dare take him out of the pasture. I took him out one time to feed him and tied him to the trailer and he went nuts for 40 minutes. When I put him away now I can hardly get the halter off before he bolts to the other horses. What do I do! So frustrated…
Move him out of that pasture? It’s likely the mare has changed the dynamics - but I have seen geldings get this attached. Or move the mare.
Also, he needs to be handled daily outside the pasture and taught some boundaries. Can you confidently tell the difference between a bit of herdboundness that needs a firm fair hand vs a dangerous situation? If he’s scared you, it’s probably time to involve a pro that you know isn’t just going to shank the crap out of him but is going to give you tools to handle this safely.
The easiest thing would be to remove the mare and maybe the new gelding, or move your boy to an all-geldings pasture. Then work on manners and ground skills as well.
1 Like
Zombie thread from more than 10 years ago!
1 Like
Thank you. It’s hard to find pros where I live but I have found a young woman to help me with ground manners. I’ll get him moved and see what happens. He did this one time before when he became attached to a mare. Thank you for responding!
Some geldings just can’t handle being turned out with mares. If moving him works, then you can work on the holes in his training that you are now aware of!
I have one sort of like this, and we do keep the mare in a different pasture, but he has manners (and I enforce them) so he was fine for humans when he was turned out with her. It was the other horses that got bullied away from “his” mare.
I had an Arabian gelding that was extremely studdy with mares, to the point that he was breeding them when he was turned out in a mixed herd. He was gelded at 4 (I was young and stupid and I guess I had Black Stallion Syndrome), never bred as a stallion and the vet swore that he got everything. Horses do produce testosterone even if they do not have balls. He was a nightmare at the boarding farm where I had him after moving from a place where he had individual turnout. So he was moved from mixed herd turnout to a small individual paddock where he paced so bad he wore his feet down to nubs.
Then I was able to move to a small co-op situation. I had my large WB gelding there that called all the shots in the pasture. He set Mr. Studly on the path to eunuch-hood if Mr. Studly even looked at the mare in the pasture. It was like, all of the sudden, Mr. Studly realized he had been delegated to the bachelor herd and it was not worth it to challenge the herd stallion who weighed twice as much as him. Cured his problem.
2 Likes
Experienced that earlier this summer. My 19 year old gelding who had his manhoods removed before he was 2 (I know because I was there) started to act like a breeding stallion in June! Never behaved like that before and he travelled all over with mares in the trailer beside him with no indication he even noticed that she existed.
What seemed to work for him was to remove him from that mixed boarding situation to an all-gelding herd, and because mares lived next door I bought and fed him raspberry leaves, 1/2 cup/day. Seemed to work a charm; now he doesn’t pay any attention to the girls next door.
