My young stallion, too well behaved?

[is_V]

Hello,

I really need some help, advice and opinions.

I have a 2009 La Silla stallion, he is currently competing in the 5yo jumper classes with good results.
I bought him as a stallion prospect, he has nice bloodlines, excellent type and conformation and a lovely jump.

I bought him as a 2 almost 3 year old and I only saw him free jumping and in the pasture with other colts his age. In the pasture he was very energetic and acted much as the leader.

However now that he is ridden and training he is too well behaved! He lacks blood, some days he even gets a bit heavy to ride. He has no stallion behavior except for the very occasional neigh. He is in training with a grand prix jumper rider who loves him except for his sometimes dull character.
I wanted to present him to the stallion approvals last year but preferred to wait to see if he matures or wakes up. Even the geldings that are his age are more fresh than he is. When he goes out to compete he gets a little more active.

Is this normal for young stallions? Will he wake up and be more fresh some day? Or will this be his temperament always?

His pedigree: http://www.sporthorse-data.com/d?i=10789680

[ladyj79]

At 39% tb, he’s relatively low percentage blood compared to a lot of stallions out there today. I say go with it. As someone who has a full premium Holsteiner mare who still works out to 51% blood, I’m only looking at stallions with less blood than her. Your guy has a super pedigree and apparently a good temperament? Win-win!

[Samotis]

Have you checked for ulcers, especially in hind gut? My horse is 6 now and when he was 4 he was so lazy I could barely get him to canter. He is a tad over half tb, so this concerned me!!!

I put him on ranitidine and a hind gut ulcer treatment and not only has his appearance changed, he has a lot more energy now and has filled out.

He could still be growing and just gets some growing pains if you will. He may not be utilizing his food like he should and not getting the energy out of it, I think that was part of my guys problem.

Good luck! Look up Kombat Boots this will help them utilize their feed better. I love the stuff, it really works.

[is_V]

[QUOTE=ladyj79;7578584]
At 39% tb, he’s relatively low percentage blood compared to a lot of stallions out there today. I say go with it.[/QUOTE]

I really appreciated your observation on his blood percentage. I really don´t complain about his sweet nature but I constantly hear that top jumpers tend to be on the hotter side, this is where my concern started.

@Samotis;7578644

Have you checked for ulcers, especially in hind gut? My horse is 6 now and when he was 4 he was so lazy I could barely get him to canter. He is a tad over half tb, so this concerned me!!!

I will have him checked. He sure is still growing and I think he could be a late bloomer so maybe it´s just what you said he is not utilizing his food properly mixed with the genetic factor.

Thank you!

[rodawn]

He is still growing and will continue to grow/fill out for another couple to 3 years.

He may need some backing off on his training. I.e. if they are working him 6 days a week, back it off to 4 days. Some trainers get a little excited about the raw talent and push them a wee bit too hard. Or ask the trainer to shake up his training a bit and do a day of riding the track and another day of cross-country to shake up his interest, perhaps a trail ride here and there, take him to the beach and go swimming, do some in hand work with him. There is a wonderful trainer in England that I watched take his horses out to the x-country and he did it all in hand, including water features. Not every training day has to be a riding day.

You could also get some blood work to see if his blood counts are okay (thyroid, anemia, vitamin B12, etc).

[rodawn]

Had another thought, you could reevaluate his hay consumption. He might need a wee bit more alfalfa than he is currently getting. The combination of growing, being a stallion, and being worked (thus developing new musculature and bone mass in response to work) takes quite a toll on protein demands. Even if he’s getting 25% lucerne to grass hay ratio, you could try adding another flake of lucerne to increase the percentage of alfalfa to grass hay. Just a thought.

[Gayle_in_Oregon]

Hormones

[QUOTE=rodawn;7582089]
Had another thought, you could reevaluate his hay consumption. He might need a wee bit more alfalfa than he is currently getting. The combination of growing, being a stallion, and being worked (thus developing new musculature and bone mass in response to work) takes quite a toll on protein demands. Even if he’s getting 25% lucerne to grass hay ratio, you could try adding another flake of lucerne to increase the percentage of alfalfa to grass hay. Just a thought.[/QUOTE]

On average stallions mature and get the highest testosterone levels at about 7 years old. I would have a semen sample taken and make sure he has enough live motile sperm. Its cheap and may tell you something about his future as a breeding horse. I have known people who went through all the expensive hoops only to find their stallion was shooting blanks…Today those hoops are in the tens of thousands…find out early if he has the ‘real stuff’ needed. Should only cost a few hundred.

[camohn]

A tale of 2 stallions. My first I purchased as a 2 yo. He was a handful that year but got quieter every year until by 5 you didn’t know he wasn’t a gelding. As that was a ok with me! Now his son was quiet through 3 . He was a late bloomer on testosterone poisoning and 4 was a bad year, came one speed dial finger from being gelded. 5 he got over that but turned lazy. I again considered gelding, though not a management issue like at 4, but it was annoying.but…this year he woke up and smelled the roses. I am finally actually enjoying riding him for the first time since he was 3, plus his first foals are just starting under saddle and I have gotten glowing reports from the folks that bought them how bombproof and easy they were to start…So looking forward to a better year at 6, and even in the same family…they are different…by breed: his sire was a full TB, he is 3/4 TB
On sperm: his sires sperm counts were low at 3 and 4, only got up into the good range when he turned 5

[Laurierace]

I had a two year old colt in training that looked like a billion dollars but acted like a 30 year old plow mule. His weight was great, his coat was blinding but he was dull. By day two of gastrogard he was bucking in place in his stall.

[kookicat]

Running bloods can’t hurt. Could be that he’s just plain tired. Can you turn him away for a couple of weeks and re-asses?

[PNWjumper]

I will preface my comments by saying that I have no experience with stallions and can’t address that aspect of the question. But I do have a young Holsteiner gelding (no idea on the blood percentage, but here’s his pedigree - http://www.allbreedpedigree.com/campiro) who was pretty quiet from the beginning. To the point that I was worried he wouldn’t “wake up” to the bigger fences (though he rarely touched a fence), but nothing too out of the ordinary for a quiet horse. Did the 1.15m in his 4/5yo year and he came home from the last show of the year with a bug (fever and cough that wouldn’t go away). He got lethargic with the bug and it just seemed like he never came out of it. I suspect that it was a coincidence, but it’s hard to say. His 5yo year was awful - it was a huge battle to get him to go forward at all, and then the beginning of his 6yo year was terrible too because he added a spooky attitude to the deadness.

We ran blood with nothing unusual showing up and I also tried gastroguard with no changes in his behavior.

Now heading into his 7yo year I finally see a light at the end of the tunnel. He’s started to “fire up” around a course and starting to respond under saddle with a bit more oomph. In the process I’ve had several people tell me that they’ve been through the same issues with their WBs in the 4-7yo range.

I will say that my guy was a relatively slow maturer. In fact, at coming-7 he’s still super narrow through his shoulders and clearly has more growing to do. But the majority of his “going forward issues” coincided with the process of his hind end growing and maturing into something that fit his body. I think I would have saved myself a lot of frustration if I would have just tossed him out to pasture after his stellar 4/5yo year and left him until this year.

In regards to the hot versus not attitude for a jumper, though, I will say that my personal preference is for a slightly dead and extremely smart horse. My best upper level jumpers have had that combination of dead-type and wicked. I definitely feel like I’m in the minority, but I do know a handful of BNTs who feel the same.

So I guess my comment would be that a) I wouldn’t put too much concern into attitude until he’s done growing and b) I wouldn’t worry about “type” (dead versus hot) until or unless your trainer actually runs into problems around a course because of the attitude.

[ladyj79]

[QUOTE=PNWjumper;7583872]
I will preface my comments by saying that I have no experience with stallions and can’t address that aspect of the question. But I do have a young Holsteiner gelding (no idea on the blood percentage, but here’s his pedigree - http://www.allbreedpedigree.com/campiro) who was pretty quiet from the beginning. [/QUOTE]

http://www.horsetelex.com/horses/pedigree/1636584

Worked with a Camiros 3yr old mare last summer/fall, she was also super quiet. Landgraf damside, pretty much a given she’s going to be long-maturing.

With the pressure to perform and put up results, especially with stallions, it does seem like we are expecting young horses to act like campaigners before they’ve even stopped growing. Not sure how we can address this issue, just an observation.

[titan]

I have a 5 yo as well (Berlin/Quick Star/Le Tot de Semilly) and am thrilled that he is well behaved. He’s also just started doing the YJC classes, won both his qualifiers in KY. He seems happy, healthy, and thankfully quiet. I think 5 is still young, they are still growing and although a bit more spark would be nice for the show ring, I love how sweet he is otherwise.