"Meanest Stallions in History" thread ...

[Foxtrot_s]

Thank you for sticking up for Cor Noir. Stallions, as we know, get a rough deal in life and have to live a life that is not natural for most of them and one that is very restrictive. If they are handled by professionals all their lives and given the right considerations they can live happily. Unfortunately, especially in the old days, and I expect especially the hot blooded TB’s many of them were living very frustrated lives. . . handlers who were as rough and tough as them.

More to the point, is how many of these stallions pass down their temperaments to their get?

A young up and coming showjumper got killed by entering the stall of her WB stallion a few years back. A dreadful accident, but perhaps a warning that owning and handling stallions is a specialist’s job.

We had a girl on our Hunt who rode her TB stallion. He was a wonderful boy. While she rode with a drressage whip, she never needed it, she never expected any other rider to give her special considerations regarding space or running up behind her, or staying away if they were riding mares. Nobody seeing her would have known he was a stallion.

[rizzodm]

[QUOTE=harvestmoon;4519157]
Small TB breeding farm? Are we talking about the Danzig? ;)[/QUOTE]

IDK, that is what they called him. I was just happy to be working there.

Dawn

[ponygirl]

@DownYonder;4518403

I remember Katrin Burger (vice-breeding director for the Oldenburg Verband) commenting a few years ago how they really don’t see too many WB stallions these days with horrible characters. She said they used to see them many years ago - but the ones with bad characters were eventually weeded out through the performance tests and by the breeders themselves.

But wasn’t Cor Noir a really difficult horse to deal with? A friend told me she walked past his stall while visiting Hilltop and he charged her with bared teeth and his ears flat back against his poll. She had no doubt that he would have savaged her if he could have gotten to her. And another friend told me she was warned to stay away from his stall. And I believe he was eventually euthanized when his aberrant behavior got so bad that he started mutilating himself.

I saw him when he came down to Florida with Scott Hassler. He was in the cross ties and we were told not to pet him. Scott said he was very badly mistreated and it was due to that as to why he was not so easy. He also said they did not allow any breedings to him until they had a few crops on the ground to see if his disposition was passed to his offspring. I thought he was euthanized due to the same thing as his 1/2 sibling (stallion brother) who escapes my name.

The other stallions that came down, Riverman and Parabol were very good. Their daughter, 4 or 5 at the time, was allowed to brush on them while in cross ties.

As for other stallions with dicey dispositions, Kingmambo is no cup cake.

[ponygirl]

@KnKShowmom;4518785

Storm Cats aren’t exactly loved for their warm and cuddly personalities - I think Tabasco Cat was the one who ran over D Wayne Lukas’ son and nearly killed him.

Actually, I just read an article about various stallions. Storm Cat and 2 of his sons (one being Tabasco Cat) were mentioned. The stallion handler to these 3 said that they were actually very good to handle in the breeding shed. Very mannerly! Who knew?!?!

[harvestmoon]

[QUOTE=rizzodm;4519281]
IDK, that is what they called him. I was just happy to be working there.

Dawn[/QUOTE]

Ah, well, this is the Danzig I was talking about:

http://www.pedigreequery.com/danzig

If it wasn’t him, then maybe it was one of his sons.

[Foxtrot_s]

Sorry to hear that Fair Play was a meanie - he is a pillar in so many sporthorse pedigrees. Let’s hope he was just ‘misunderstood’ and it is no longer evident in the progeny this many generations along!!

[TKR]

Fair Play was difficult and tempermental but his sire, Hastings, was much more of a lethal weapon. Man o’ War’s dam, Mahubah x Rock Sand was a good foil for the high tempered sireline. Who knows if circumstances and poor handling exacerbated these stallions with sensitive natures. Poor handling can certainly make a horse combative.
PennyG

[tBHj]

[QUOTE=Foxtrot’s;4520111]
Sorry to hear that Fair Play was a meanie - he is a pillar in so many sporthorse pedigrees. Let’s hope he was just ‘misunderstood’ and it is no longer evident in the progeny this many generations along!![/QUOTE]

Man O War is 7 generations back in my horses pedigree (making Fair Play 8th). She isn’t mean at all.

[Dressage_Diva333]

[QUOTE=kitsunegari;4520750]
Man O War is 7 generations back in my horses pedigree (making Fair Play 8th). She isn’t mean at all. :D[/QUOTE]

7 generations is a very very long way

[rcloisonne]

[QUOTE=EquineLVR;4517439]
I worked on a pretty famous arabian farm in Phoenix called KARHO - there was one liver chesnut stallion - cannot remember his name - but he was flat out dangerous - hardly could go in his stall as he would try and pin you and then kick you to death… I am sure most of it was due to being in his stall 24x7.[/QUOTE]
Was it *Nariadni?

[GGStables]

Just read the original post’s link where they mention TB stallion Waquoit as particularly difficult. Given the vein of the topic I’m surprised as we have a mare by him who has to be the nicest and most sensible girl, ever. Both her foals also stood out as intelligent, gentle types.

OTOH, reading about Dynaformer possibly explains a lot! We had one of his granddaughters, sired by Idobel (Mr Prospector x Briartic). She was to be our broodmare and stood about 16.2 and verrry f-l-a-s-h-y, but what a psycho! A crazy meat-loving devil’s spawn from hell. She was difficult to catch, girthy, hated the entire herd, snapped at my face whenever I fed her, pinned her ears & turned her butt at anyone who entered her stall, almost bit my finger off, kicked me, kicked the vet, sprained my hand & arm and sent me to hospital with a bruised coccyx and gave me concussion for good measure.

It all happened in such a short space of time but it was obvious that I just could not get through to her and since I wasn’t recovering between injuries before the next bout of “Try and kill your new Owner” she was shipped straight back to her previous one! She was replaced by a “troublesome Red Head” Thoroughbred who is the sweetest, most docile and ladylike mare on the planet.
:yes:

[EquineLVR]

[QUOTE=rcloisonne;4520852]
Was it *Nariadni?[/QUOTE]

That sounds right…

[Catsdorule-sigh]

Man O’ War/Fair Play

The topic of Man O’ War and Fair Play being a favorite of mine…

Fair Play was certainly spirited and not an easy horse but I’ve found no history of mean. When Belmont died, he was purchased by Widener for $100,000 at age 19, so it seems he was well respected. When Fair Play died, Widener had a statue made of the horse and I think Mahubah was buried next to him. Not the ending of a man-eater.

http://www.tbheritage.com/Portraits/FairPlay.html

Not to say all in the line were not on the mean side. Hard to handle, certainly.

Fair Play’s sire Hastings was the mean one. I’ve not found writings that Hasting’s sire, Spendthrift, was mean at all. But Hasting’s dam, Cinderella, seems to be the source of the problem. I think another of her foals was named Migraine.

Man O’ War was certainly tempermental but would “play” at boxing with his groom when he was at the track. (Don’t know that I would do that…)

When you google him on You Tube, you can see pictures of him posing with people around so I don’t think he was in the dangerous category. This is my favorite picture:

http://curtispublishing.com/images/NonRockwell/9410913.jpg

Yeah, that’s a mean horse. Of course, he’s quite a bit older there, but his groom Harbut, said MOW would do that all day if he let him. And if you read Dorothy Ours book, jockey Johnny Loftus was not afraid at all to go in his paddock shortly after his retirement and call him up to get treats. Granted, probably not everyone chould do that. But that holds for lots of stallions. MOW knew who he trusted and he remembered.

Wonder how many stallions, like the Fair Play line, start out as just high strung and get dangerous when people don’t handle that temperment right? So many of the line did end up in sport that it seems they weren’t all difficult.

Mahubah may have tempered things a bit but she was also known to be a nervous type horse.

[grayarabs]

Rarely do I find a TB that I dislike, but reading this thread reminded me of a TB at the barn that is just a pain in the butt. Kicks fences, his shed, at other horses - I think the owners don’t even try to have his hind hooves trimmed.
I sometimes have to ride by his paddock and he comes flying across his pen with ears pinned. He is always doing something you rather wish he were not doing.
I remember I asked about his pedigree: his sire was by Danzig. His dam was a Halo granddaughter (via Sunny’s Halo). So no wonder he is difficult to like.
Halo goes to Hail to Reason by Turn To by Royal Charger, right?
I thought I had heard that RC was a real sweetheart?

[Equilibrium]

[QUOTE=ponygirl;4519355]
Actually, I just read an article about various stallions. Storm Cat and 2 of his sons (one being Tabasco Cat) were mentioned. The stallion handler to these 3 said that they were actually very good to handle in the breeding shed. Very mannerly! Who knew?!?![/QUOTE]

That’s because at Overbrook the policy was always “let them be horses.” They stayed out in all weathers all the time unless lightning was around - that’s when Storm Cat came in. And only certain stallions were allowed near Storm Cat. He had favorite buddies so to speak.

I remember when Tactical Cat went off to stud. Now I actually wouldn’t classify him as mean, just really really annoying to deal with. And considering his mother was exactly the same, it was a family trait. Anyway, TC went to the farm in January. Upon arrival he decided not to cooperate with people so they decided a bit of hardship was needed. He got chucked out in the field to freeze his you know what’s off. He decided to play ball after that. The nicest and easiest gallop ever was TC, but I had to go to and from the track with a pony and a person on the off side. You couldn’t just go with the pony because he knew how to rear up so he could knock the pony rider and then would drop his shoulder and slam you to the ground. Not pleasant!

I have seen some Seattle Slew colts who were absolutely dreadful and I know many of you love them. I saw a SS colt drop my friend Joanne to the ground and savage her. And yes there were mulitiple people trying to get her and the horse. He went for brain surgery the next day. I’ll have to look up his name. Also a tough son of a gun to gallop, but many Slew’s were tough. Also saw another Slew try the exact same savagery back when I first started at the farm in the late 80’s.

I witnessed Gulch tear the sleeve of a coat off of a hotwalker one morning and a horse named Double Feint by Spetacular Bid, picked up our assistant by the stomach and had to be beaten off of the guy.

Can’t think of anymore at the moment, but they were very rare indeed.

Terri

[grayarabs]

Does anyone remember reading the article about 15 years ago - I think writer/rider was Diana Rankin and think the horse was New Ladykiller?
Was either CoTH or D&CT mag or such where it was described that the horse’s sire? “had killed a man”. Dang - who was that? WB or TB?

[Allyn_M]

Having read all of these stories I pretty much feel I can remember the worst one I ever heard. The problem is I cannot remember the name of either stallion nor their breeding ( I know ! pretty bad for a breeder , but it’s been a while since I was interested in track breeding ) This story was told to me by a good friend of the woman involved and was pretty much the talk of the Indiana racing community for a while. Husband and wife had a breeding operation for track horses with one stallion and multiple mares and I believe they raced their own stock . Woman handled much of the breeding . Woman loved their stallion and the feeling was mutual,but stallion was getting old and husband wanted a new stallion . He was offered a deal on a well bred young stallion that was " hard to handle "
Wife did not want to buy the horse ,but husband ended up buying it anyway.Young stallion was more then just hard to handle and wife wanted to sell him and just use their good old boy. People came to look at young stallion and wife was bringing him out from the field when he turned on her and got her down and began to savage her . She was screaming and people could not help her but her other stallion several pastures down saw what was happening and jumped several fences and beat the young stallion off of her enough for the people to get her away . She was taken to hospital where all of her wounds were treated but unfortunately her arm had to be amputated.
She eventually recovered ; the young stallion was euthanized and the husband and wife got a divorce.
I believe the wife still has the farm and breeds track horses.

[Ibex]

@Foxtrot's;4519196

A Canadian stallioin that once went to the Olympics was a self mutilator and had to live in a wired stall. Two grooms had to handle him. He suppsedly came through some rough handling, so was it nature or nurture? Finally he was gelded, but not until after a long and successful GP showjumping career. Poor guy.

I doubt it was only handling. I know one of his daughters who most definitely has a screw loose…

[harvestmoon]

[QUOTE=Allyn M;4522404]
Having read all of these stories I pretty much feel I can remember the worst one I ever heard. The problem is I cannot remember the name of either stallion nor their breeding ( I know ! pretty bad for a breeder , but it’s been a while since I was interested in track breeding ) This story was told to me by a good friend of the woman involved and was pretty much the talk of the Indiana racing community for a while. Husband and wife had a breeding operation for track horses with one stallion and multiple mares and I believe they raced their own stock . Woman handled much of the breeding . Woman loved their stallion and the feeling was mutual,but stallion was getting old and husband wanted a new stallion . He was offered a deal on a well bred young stallion that was " hard to handle "
Wife did not want to buy the horse ,but husband ended up buying it anyway.Young stallion was more then just hard to handle and wife wanted to sell him and just use their good old boy. People came to look at young stallion and wife was bringing him out from the field when he turned on her and got her down and began to savage her . She was screaming and people could not help her but her other stallion several pastures down saw what was happening and jumped several fences and beat the young stallion off of her enough for the people to get her away . She was taken to hospital where all of her wounds were treated but unfortunately her arm had to be amputated.
She eventually recovered ; the young stallion was euthanized and the husband and wife got a divorce.
I believe the wife still has the farm and breeds track horses.[/QUOTE]

Wow, just, wow…

What a good boy her first stallion was.

[ASB_Stars]

[QUOTE=dilligaff2;4519191]
Ribot is way back in my filly’s dam line but I remembered seeing a picture of him that made me think–“What a pleasant fellow!”[/QUOTE]

Unless I am mistaken, the other horse in that picture may be Hyperion. I recall it being another famous stallion- anyone know?