Exactly my point.
No argument here that sex hormones have an effect on growth, physical appearance, and musculature development. However, these physical traits do not have direct linear relationships to ability to navigate technical jump courses.
Just because people dope(d) their horses with testosterone, doesn’t mean that’s definitely the winning hormone that does something magical. People do a lot of dumb crap with fake, incomplete, and/or false information.
Yes; I recall coming across at least one Veterinary study in a different language. I can’t seem to find it at the moment. Here is some information from a Veterinarian regarding gelding and mature height.
Is that actually “later than they normally would”, or is later neutering and allowing the testosterone surge closing them earlier than they normally would? Big difference.
In horses, the testosterone surge of a maturing stallion closes growth plates sooner. My guess for the reason why it’s not talked about much is that it is much too hard to definitively say “and leads to height disparities of up to X%”
There are plenty of taller stallions and shorter geldings than immediate pedigree would suggest. My own gelding, gelded at 9 months, did not reach a height predicted by both the string tests, and his pedigree. My WB gelding, also gelded at 9 months, was every bit as tall as his damsire, and 1" taller than his sire.
Lots of horses end up shorter or taller than pedigree suggests, whether it’s because they were their dam’s first foal, or they are a throwback to a giant or midget 4 generations back.
The growth plate closure timeframes are pretty well-documented, and geldings shouldn’t differ from mares if you’re going to work towards total closure. But there is total closure, and there is “closure enough that appropriate work is not detrimental”, with a whole lot going into “appropriate”.
I DO, 100%, think that horses should not be jumping courses at 5, let alone 4 or 3. That is stressing the very growth plates that are the last to close and the first to cause problems - hocks and back.
I would argue that the natural closure (i.e. intact) date is the “normal”, and not the other way around. Horses have evolved over millenia with their sexual organs intact, so it would stand to reason that their physiology is optimized for those hormones being present and not artificially removed.
If it were just about height, then sure - but the joint angles are also different, which would be the real cause of concern for me.
Again, this is from studies on dogs, not horses - but it’s not just testosterone. It’s sex hormones. So spaying a bitch early has the same effect as neutering a dog early, which (obviously assuming the general science behind it holds true with horses) indicates that the growth plate closures for geldings and mares should differ if the same effects are true.
good point!
I’ve never seen this referenced in horses. Food for thought, though I will say there are many, many well-conformed geldings, and many many terribly built stallions, and the well-built stallions produce many well-built geldings.
Something else to consider - if we assume that the relative growth differences hold for dogs and horses, given that horses tend to live much longer, and finish growing at a lower % of their genetic life than dogs, it would seem that differences between earlier gelding are much lower. Gelding a yearling who would have had the testosterone surge at, say, 2, and who will live 30 years, vs neutering a dog at 6 months, surge at what, 12 months? 18? and who will live maybe 15 years. Does that make sense?
I believe only two stallions have competed at the Olympics in Eventing - Chili Morning and Windfall
Stallions were being shown in the 60’s and 70’s. (and probably before that, but I was there in the 60’s and 70’s) so I don’t think it just became a “thing”.
Some European countries don’t automatically geld their horses like we do in the U.S. Even if they don’t intend to breed them, many are left intact. They teach them manners and expect them to be solid citizens. Spain comes to mind.
the Iberian breeds are generally left intact, true,
Most everybody else used to castrate their yearlings. It cuts down on oopsies and insurance issues.
I did not say stallions were never shown prior to the 80s, I said it became a thing.
Prior to that in Germany for instance it was largely prohibited to own a stallion outside of large breeding farms. The government stud farms had the monopoly for breeding stallions.
And some of the big ones put their prospects in a show program (but very few)
And in the 80s suddenly the stallions became a common sight at shows.
it was such a notable event, my family commented on it.
That’s very interesting about Germany.
My experience in the U.S. was that in the late 60’s and in the 70’s there were many stallions showing, even in our local shows.
Perhaps it was a regional thing.
Big Star has a truly amazing temperament, soft as butter, even doesn’t mind children around his feet in his stable.
SJ now involves big money and top horses sell for high prices (far, far higher than eventing) so keeping a top-performing horse entire is a very useful second income. A few have even been collected during a show!
Temperament does seem to be heritable. Riders are looking for horses, including stallions, that are easy to handle on the ground, in the stables, in the air, living in the busy world of international shows. The circuit goes from China to the USA via the Middle East these days. A bad tempered or difficult horse could be a big problem for many people, not just the rider.
Americans have an odd attachment to testicles.
I think Spain beats us in that respect.
the culture around the balls seems to be more cultured and controlled but yes.
then again, I live next to a family with 2 intact male dogs, and an intact billy goat.
Last I checked though…the goat was still there. And amorous…which means smelly.
Before that they had trouble keeping the dogs from roaming, which could have been largely prevented by neutering…or implanting Neuticals, if the husband had concerns.
In the old world, gelding is default, unless the label of ‘prospect’ is attached to the colt.
So much less hassle, and the geldings have richer social life
Intact Show/Sport performance horses can’t really be compared with your neighbors lack of responsibility for their backyard animals.
I was under the impression that we were discussing horses in the Show/Sport disciplines, not anyone’s neighborhood dog or goat.
we are talking attachment to balls.
You are. 
I don’t know what sort of breeders you have known but the people that I knew who bred show horses back then certainly didn’t “use the stallion down the road and hope that something that complimented their mare was available.”
Neither would a stallion owner accept just any mare that someone wanted to breed to their stallion.
Careful breeding of horses has been going on for ages. It was just as much an economic issue back then as it is today. Producing inferior horses was not helpful to any breeder’s finances nor for their reputation, the same as today.
Competing a stallion was not unusual where I lived in the U.S. They were gorgeous well bred horses that were well mannered and they commanded significant stud fees. They were not some backyard horse that someone couldn’t afford to geld.
Only “backyard” (in the derogatory sense) breeds did, and still do that. Hope is never/has never been a main part of any reputable breeder’s thought process
What AI changed is the cost of shipping mares around the country though even “back then”, shipping was usually much closer than coast to coast. It changed the number of stallions MOs have access to. It changed the number of offspring a stallion can produce.
In Europe, things are much smaller, and especially in the WB world, with the carefully cultivated studs that have been around a very long time, it just wasn’t nearly as difficult to take mares to good stallions. They didn’t just seek out the closest stallion and hope for the best.
TBs have never been AI, and no race breeder “hopes” the closest stallion will produce a winner. Nobody who is or was breeding for sport hopes the closest is at least good enough.
Europeans have a long-standing tradition of breeding using horses with huge remount programs reaching back several hundred years.
the government provided good stallions to the farmers for that reason.
we were talking about show horses though.
I am not sure how TBs have lasted this long without AI, Standardbred have used AI for decades now.
Then again, TBs don’t need AI to limit the gene pool. The dominant stallions already pop up in all pedigrees.
Also, I am not sure how to address the ‘Amateur’ thing.
I think for most it is more a matter of having the facilities than the skill.
Of course there is also the psychological matter of OMG STALLION
some people can’t ride stallions.
Not because of skill, but because they scare themselves.
Two traditional ways to breed in Europe. The State tested and owned the stallions and kept them at stud e.g. Celle. The farmers either brought in their mares or the stallions were dispersed around the regions to more local stallion stations. The state had an interest because it was all about producing remounts for the army. Or private individuals owned a good stallion, such as a Shire in the 19th century, and a stallion man walked them around a district to the mares during a breeding season. One can still find antique fliers and posters advertising the arrival of a stallion and listing the places where he could be inspected by the potential customers.
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