Tempermental TB Stallions

[Kwill]

Found some info on the most infamous TB stallions, many whom are liked for sporthorse breeding, when looking for comments on Halo … it could be it’s the way they are handled, but does give one pause!

Meanest thoroughbred stallions ever...

•Beau Monde “killed a horse on a flight, bit someone’s thumb off, broke a hotwalkers arm in three places, picked his groom up by the middle of the back held him in the air and shook him like a rag doll, and bit me in the chest so hard that I could feel the blood running down my shirt.”

•Bold Bidder

•Catrail “pulled a stallion man over his paddock fence and tried to kill him”

•Corslew (attacked his owner)

•Danzig “killed birds in his stall”

•Devil His Due

•Display"worst post horse in history"

•Dixie Brass “bit groom, took a chunk out of him”

•Dust Commander

•Dynaformer “has bitten off fingers”

•Festival of Light “put manager in the hospital.” Gelded due to temperament.

•Grey Sovereign

•Halo “psychotic…”

•Hastings “terror of the studmen”

•Nevele Pride

•Personal Flag

•Ribot “only one groom could go near him”

•Round Table

•Scarlet Ibis “took off a groom’s thumb”

•Seeking the Gold “a brute”

•Silver Ghost handlers “carried baseball bats”

•Sir Tristam"tossed a man over a fence"

•Southern Halo

•Spinning World

•Watch Your Step “lived in a steel halter”

•Woodman

Here’s another thread on this topic from the pedigree query forum:

http://www.pedigreequery.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=16739&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

The good news is, most of them don’t seem to pass on that temperament, especially when mixed with other lines that have nice temperaments. So is it handling, or just breeding for speed and not easy going personalities?

Adding this link too, discussion of heredity versus handling:

Stallion Temperament: Acquired or hereditary? - Sporting Post

It is also worth noting that many stallions’ reputations are built up, or destroyed, by incidents which have been blown up out of all proportion. Some stallions are described as savage, when in fact they have been poorly handled and badly managed

[TKR]

I could add to the list, but would have to ask - what’s the point? It’s a bit like the stallion ratings in various venues or lists – skewed by what is reported not necessarily a representation of what a stallion brings to the table. So, what exactly is the point?
PennyG

[Kwill]

It was open for discussion – plenty of people post here asking for advice on TB pedigrees, including temperament of various lines. Many of the horses listed there are in good sporthorse pedigrees.

If it’s just handling, and all the rumors of “bad temperament” are just bunk, then people should know that, too, don’t you think?

What’s the point of any breeding post on any given bloodline or stallion? It was just a point of interest, to me, and if it’s of no interest to anyone else, the thread will go to page 2 and be forgotten within hours.

[vineyridge]

How would you think any male would become if he had to impregnate a female as many times as these big name stallions do with live cover? And most of them live very unnatural lives during their breeding careers. Can you imagine what their male hormone levels must be? And the stallions with the big books usually were already very competitive on the track. And the modern ones were all probably pumped with steroids.

There are psychotic mares as well. Hastings’s dam was famously crazy. Vampire killed one of her grooms.

The Hail To Reason lines through Halo and Roberto are notorious for evil stallion behavior. So was Bold Bidder’s son Dickens Hill, although I think Bold Bidder has been named the most evil of all the recent ones.

[Charlie08]

I have this boy:
http://www.pedigreequery.com/crazyinus

Scarlet Ibis, Storm Cat and WAY too many crosses to Ribot on his first page. Plus, look at his name! Pronounced Craziness. He was four May 1, so still a goofy baby, but a total puppy. He has a barn name, but everyone refers to him as “The Baby”. He’s that precious. Gorgeous movement, one of the loveliest necks I’ve ever seen on a TB and still growing like a weed.

I also have this boy:
http://www.pedigreequery.com/deep+silence

He has more crosses to Fair Play/Hastings than I’ve ever seen and required no “down time” from the track for attitude (he was 17 hands of bones though). He takes TB heart to another level and is the love of my life. Not one wrong step, ever. Now, in turn out, he’s a brute. Herds and bullies if he’s out with the pacifists. Would chase and bite them if I tried to grab someone other than him. After a little training, he’s better, but will wear a sour face about it.

The secret… Geldings. If you pull in my driveway, whatever your species, you must have corrective surgery before the gate will open. :))

[PINE_TREE_FARM_SC]

What matters is how the offspring behave, not the stallion.
one of mine: http://www.pedigreequery.com/chuctanunda2
He is retired now but he was a success as an Adult Amateur Hunter and Adult Amateur Jumper ( no, I did not show him as ‘chuctanunda’).
One of his full sibs had a great career as a childrens hunter.
Neither of them ever required trainer prep or even trainer rides between shows. Both were handled by their owners.
I have another horse with Halo up close. He is also an Adult Amateur horse. He’s semi retired and is teaching beginners to ride.

Even stallions with good reps will produce a few bad actors from time to time. Offspring behavior depends on lots of factors. Although I do agree that certain stallions do pass along good minds.

[vineyridge]

For a foal to be one year old on January 1 means that it has to have been started back in February and March, if I can still count. In the wild, the mares aren’t even cycling yet. So stallions are being asked to breed very (now with shuttling and big books, very, very) large numbers of mares in a very condensed period of time. I wouldn’t think a different mare a day is unusual; and sometimes there have to be re-dos. No time for courtship; little chance for stallions to select their mates.

All of this is enormously unnatural, along with the unnatural living conditions that many breeding stallions suffer.

[okggo]

I certainly can’t speak to these, but I boarded at a TB stallion station for a couple of years. Those horses were usually in the stall, turned out pretty infrequently. They had teasers who they brought in first, and then the stallions came out to breed. Their only contact with horses day in and day out was either to tease or breed. Much of their contact with people was being led to tease or breed.

You literally could not walk a horse (any horse!) down the aisle without the stallions going ape-batty at the site of it. Think about that life…

[propspony]

Nevele Pride was a standardbred, so if you find HIM in your TB pedigrees, SOMEONE has some 'splaining to do. ;-p

[Sukey1971]

I think you should add Nasrullah to that list

Nasrullah was known to flake out at races and fail to finish. His foals often inherited his unreliable disposition, along with his degenerative hock disease.

[Anne]

Nasrullah only finished out of the money in 2 of his 10 starts so your description is hardly accurate. He is generally found so far back in a pedigree that it’s impossible to make generalizations about soundness.

I personally witnessed Woodman get led up to greet a crowd of strangers assembled near his paddock circa 1988, with the stallion manager’s belt looped through his halter. At that time he was a sweet stallion. In his later years he battled EPM and I hear that he was trickier to live with after that. But for most of his career he was not a difficult horse at all.

[Twisted_River]

I do think this is interesting. As someone who has handled stallions I think some of the incidents and reputations may be due to temperament. Many are due to poor handling, and not just potentially poor handling at the time but possibly poor handling at 1-3yrs. In my experience if they haven’t learned not to bite by the age of 3, then they’ll always be aggressive and opportunistic biters.

Many of the reputations and incidents occur in the breeding shed where you simply can not fault the stallion. Stallion XYZ may be an angel to handle around the barn, but bring him into the breeding shed where he’s going to live cover a mare with at least one man holding him and several surrounding and assisting the process, well you really can’t fault XYZ if he gets “naughty”. In his brain none of those people should be there and he should be free to breed the mare however he likes.

And, just because XYZ is “naughty” in the breeding shed doesn’t mean he is naughty to ride or groom. So unless you’re looking at keeping and breeding a stallion sired by XYZ, it is irrelevant if he passes on his temperament (naughty in the breeding shed) to his offspring.

Several of the stallions I’ve known were lovely, sweet guys except when breeding. I would never fault them for that or use it to describe their temperaments.

[IntegritySporthorses]

As far a Halo goes, I have heard he was “crazy” as well.

I own this mare: http://www.pedigreequery.com/kangaroo7

and she’s not crazy in the least. She’s very smart and will take advantage of you if she’s allowed but she’s not crazy at all.

Just my 2 cents.

[Kwill]

Some of these guys weren’t just naughty in the breeding shed, they were quite territorial in their paddocks or stalls.

I think extreme aggression and territoriality can be passed down as not overtly agressive, but in the sense that some lines you really need to be tactful with – there’s some negotiation that has to go on to get what you want, rather than just a kick ride. Opinioned horses take a little more finesse. More intelligence, a shorter fuse, sensitivity, more energy, all those things can be channeled in the wrong hands into a rogue horse that will bite off a finger or two, throw people around, or kick you for fun.

Obviously, it’s all about the individual, but this is a breeding forum and certainly some temperament traits are passed on.

[camohn]

Ribot to me clearly has some temperment issues. I have known a number of Ribot line descendants that were definitely tempermental and they had known/decent sporthorse upbringing and never saw a racetrack. Hoist The Flag and Dynaformer, Scarlet Ibis come to mind, among others.Also have known plenty of “tough” horses from the Halo line though Silver Ghost was the only real nut job in the lot from him. Halo’s sire Hail To Reason produced some good sporthorse types, but also quite a few that were difficult tempered. Arch and his son Blame are not exactly sweet tempered horses. That also includes Halo,Devil His Due.
Several of the above horses incluing Display hail from Hastings and the story on Hastings is : Notorious for his bad temper, stablehands dare not approach him on the rare occasion that they needed to catch him (they built special chutes from his stall to his pasture and to the breeding shed in order to handle him as little as possible) without literally carrying a big stick for defense purposes

[Fred]

[QUOTE=Anne;6490298]
Nasrullah only finished out of the money in 2 of his 10 starts so your description is hardly accurate. He is generally found so far back in a pedigree that it’s impossible to make generalizations about soundness.

I personally witnessed Woodman get led up to greet a crowd of strangers assembled near his paddock circa 1988, with the stallion manager’s belt looped through his halter. At that time he was a sweet stallion. In his later years he battled EPM and I hear that he was trickier to live with after that. But for most of his career he was not a difficult horse at all.[/QUOTE]

:yes:

I have a problem with lists like this and the one compiled on pedigreequery.
Most of the comments/assessments are based on hearsay, not even third party- but “I heard someone say once” “I think I read somewhere” kind of information.
Fun to talk about, but really almost on the level of gossip, since it is not first hand experience. At the same time, taken as ‘fact’ it can be damaging to these horses’ reputations and to their offspring.People see something in print, and that sometimes translates into ‘true’.

‘Sukey’ made the very same allegations against Nasrullah in an earlier thread and despite responses to the contrary at that time has stuck to his/her beliefs- which indicates to me that information, however false or unfounded does seem to stay in people’s minds.

I have no doubt that some of these horses were tough individuals, some might have been dangerous…but read those stories,and just think of the kind of lives many of these horses lived…and also try to imagine what might have gone on behind closed doors with some of them,chains, beaten, bullwhips…:no:

In the not too distant past people had the belief that stallions had to be treated rough, you had to ‘show them who was boss’ and this sometimes/often equalled brutal treatment.
In addition they often lived lives of terrible isolation, which for a herd animal is abuse.
Combine this with limited turnout, almost never even seeing another horse (often stallions are put in stalls with the boards right up to the ceiling, or in paddocks with 6ft fences) - and then brought out only to be bred…?
What kind of life is that? I call it cruel and unusual punishment.

Some horses may accept it, some may just have their hearts and spirit broken. But if you have a sensitive,intelligent creature, and treat him roughly, and unfairly throughout his life, there is a good chance he may turn resentful and fight back.

Of course then, the rough treatment often escalates…

Traditionally too, stallions were handled only by men, and sometimes what I have seen is a sort of testosterone war. I think sometimes some men feel challenged by stallions,and I think that some stallions respond negatively to this.

And as Twisted River rightly said, it is a mistake to confuse breeding shed behaviour with temperament.

[ex-racer_owner]

My horse has two stallions from the list in his pedigree- Danzig and Halo. My horse could care less about dogs and cats milling about between his legs as I am grooming him, or leaning on him as my BO’s rescued pit bull is likely to do. Former connections of his contacted me recently and I was a bit startled to learn that my horse was their little boy’s best friend. Not because my horse is nasty or evil, it just didn’t occur to me that as a youngster or early in his racing career that any children would be around him. My horse is actually quite affectionate, I have come to realize.

[Go_Fish]

@vineyridge;6488234

How would you think any male would become if he had to impregnate a female as many times as these big name stallions do with live cover? And most of them live very unnatural lives during their breeding careers. Can you imagine what their male hormone levels must be? And the stallions with the big books usually were already very competitive on the track. And the modern ones were all probably pumped with steroids.

For many years, the AQHA required live cover. In the old days, turnout of show horses, was non-existent. Top stallions hauled thousands of miles a year while standing to a full book of two hundred or more mares a year.

I did see my share of nasty breeding stallions. But I will say, more often than not, a QH with top talent, that wouldn’t behave in a gentlemanly fashion, got the snip right quick.

[Sukey1971]

It’s well-known among racehorse folks about Nasrullah

Fred, the first time I heard about Nasrullah’s temperament was years ago, from an old retired racehorse trainer who actually trained a number of Nasrullah foals in the 1940’s and 1950’s. The Encyclopedia of British Flat Racing states that Nasrullah failed to finish his first start at two, then at three was entered in the Chatteris Stakes where he was extremely reluctant to leave the paddock to go to the track. In the 2000 Guineas he was again reluctant to leave the paddock. He retired to stud with the reputation of being a good middle-distance colt “but one with a distinctly ‘funny’ temperament”. And I’ve seen information to this effect in print and heard it from others through the years.

That said, I think your stallion is very nice. He obviously didn’t inherit a bad temperament from anywhere or you wouldn’t have kept him so many years. I mention Nasrullah only because there are so many TBs these days with multiple crosses. The bottom line is that each horse is an individual and if you’re looking to buy a horse to ride, the temperament displayed by the individual is what’s important, not the pedigree. But if you’re looking to breed the horse, it’s something to consider.