Seriously, even today?
Jan 25 2010
I have to write a whole new blog entry about this – it was brought up in yesterday’s comments and now I want to know how much truth there is to it.
I normally think of the horse world as one where there is very little discimination against women. Â After all, it is difficult to find a horse discipline in which women don’t excel, rising to the highest levels of accomplishment. Â In jumping, hunters, dressage, stock breed shows, Arabian shows, and many others, you will have no problem finding women competing against men and winning against them on a regular basis. Â You don’t see it in the higher levels of polo, but that’s because it gets down to physical strength at a certain point — in low goal polo, the girls-against-the-guys games tend to routinely result in victory for the women, who often have superior riding skills to the guys, who often started riding just to play polo.
Nor is there any obvious discrimination in the barn at the kind of barns I’ve worked in. Â Most hunter/jumper and dressage barns are staffed largely by women, as are Arabian, AQHA, APHA and ApHC barns. Â Plenty of women care for polo ponies and transport horses across country. Â They train, assistant train, and groom. Â Many work as breeding managers and barn managers. Â Employment opportunities are plentiful, if not always well-paid.
That’s why I was a little surprised to read a post in the other thread that alleged that Claiborne farms refuses to hire women as stallion handlers or grooms. Â Now, I haven’t confirmed if there’s any truth to that yet, and I’d be interested to hear the answer. Â If you’ve worked for them in that capacity, and you’re a woman, speak up! Â It does remind me of rumors I have heard from friends who worked at the track that the racetrack is stuck in 1950 when it comes to women’s rights. Â Women aren’t welcomed and are often harassed, verbally and sexually, intimidated, and even physically threatened. Â I’ve heard these stories from a number of women who’ve worked at different racetracks, so there must be something to them.
So let’s talk about that today. Â If you’re a woman who has worked in the racing industry, are they still stuck in 1950? Â Have you had the same opportunities as a man? Â Have you worked for a farm that treated you like an equal and allowed you to handle stallions and supervise breedings, or was there an assumption that you weren’t competent to do that kind of work? Â If you’ve actually worked at the track, have you been harassed because you were a woman?
I don’t want to talk about every incident of some loser sexually harassing you at a horse farm, or this thread will be 700 pages long. We’ve all had that happen. I want to talk specifically about the racing industry today, and if a genuine issue still exists as to how female trainers, jockeys, exercise riders, grooms and barn help are treated and if they do not have the employment opportunities men do.
For those of you on Facebook, if you haven’t already, become a fan of Hercules the Horse to see his updates and new pictures. This is the big guy we are still trying to identify, the one who did what we all felt like doing when he bit Ron Mariotti, the kill buyer! Katie visited him yesterday and reported back!
241 comments to “Seriously, even today?”
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`We are now the owners of a horse who was a pony horse at a local track. The reason we have him is that the gal who owned him and worked at the track found herself under sexual intimidation.
The horse is 16hh and she was a very ‘solid built’ girl- and in her mid 30′s at least.
She found herself on the short end of the stick because young, skinny, pony girls would ‘flash’ and sexually tease (and more) owners, trainers and jockeys in vying for pony jobs.
The track was her only source of support and the only boarding she had for Sunny. She could not take it anymore and would not whore herself out for the job. So she had to give Sunny to another person who lives locally and he was offered to us as opposed to going to Auction.
He is a Saddlebred/Appy cross and as cool, vice free, non-spookable and push-button as you could ever wish for. He is perfect for training kids safe handling, grooming and horse care as well as riding.
He was depressed for almost a year- I know from missing his owner, as he gets a lot of loving care here.
Now he is perky and happy and enjoys our little trail rides.
Oh do you have photos? I have a Saddlebred/Appaloosa cross. It’s a very unusual cross, I’ve never seen photos of another one and I would love to see photos of another “Appalbred” or “Saddleloosa” (as I jokingly refer to my horse.)
Yes I worked at the racetrack for 3 summers (in between years at university) and I didn’t get harrassed by the trainer(s) I worked for, but staff members who worked for OTHER trainers in my barn were another story. A lot of the Jamaicans who worked there were… unpleasant… in the ways the described me (despite being competent in the barn and working with a few of the “problem” mares).
And yes, at times I wasn’t allowed to work with the more rank stallions under my trainer because I did not have the ability to handle them when they were difficult but that was as much me not wanting to put myself in that situation as them not wanting me there. On the flip side, another trainers stallions in the same racing barn were all well mannered and easy to handle and I had no problem dealing with them even on a “bad” day.
Overall I just happened to surround myself with decent people at the track and got to know a couple other university aged girls and we looked out for each other. Did rude and judgmental comments come my way, sure. I wasn’t nicknamed “princess” for nothing – it was a razz because I was a female who was doing the job because I WANTED to – not because I had to, like a majority of the people I encountered there. Hell I heard stories that up until about 5 years before I started working at the track they did not even have FEMALE washrooms!
So yes, it is there.
So I worked as a “showman” for a bloodstock agent in college and went to all the big yearling sales – Keeneland, Saratoga, etc. Almost all the girls in his crew were short (makes a yearling look big) and blond. My boss would say “if you have a young horse with crooked legs, have a cute girl with great legs stand it up, the buyers will check her out instead” and other sexist things. However, he also gave the guys “boy work”, heavy or dirty stuff, and always had a burly guy nearby to hand off unruly yearlings to so we didn’t get hurt. I also worked at a polo barn where most of the females slept with our Argentinian pro, what can I say, he was really cute and that accent…..
They are hot but I don’t like the way many of them treat horses. I’ll take a good old American polo player any day!
Actually, Fugs, you hit on something I was going to ask everyone about. Do you think it’s quite possible that the racing industry holds onto the “machisma” attitude (not sure if I’m spelling that right) from the large amount of men that get involved in it that are of Spanish or Mexican heritage? For example, in the two main Spanish breeds of the gaited horse world, the Peruvian Horse and the Paso Fino, women are not allowed to ride stallions in shows. They can ride mares and geldings, but NEVER a stallion. It’s very much a throwback to the idea that it takes a man to handle a stallion, because a stallion is a REAL HORSE…and it’s one reason why I didn’t get into the gaited Spanish breeds and stuck with American ones.
Seems too archaic and only causes trouble to be involved in the machisma attitude, IMHO.
Anyway, my thought was that perhaps there is a correlation between machisma and racing…wonder if that’s something that’s been studied.
I’m sure it very well could be. My aunt’s mare came from a Vaquero style trainer and he had a very macho attitude. When we went down to “test ride” her before buying her he made it very clear that women shouldn’t have anything to do with training horses – period. He seemed surprised that we were able to get her tacked up without his assistance. There was another trainer there and I remember him yelling at a lady durring a lesson, saying something along the lines of her being another terrible woman rider. I’m sure it isn’t held strictly to heratige though, I’ve dealt with “macho” men of many different backgrounds.
http://www.latokarla.blogspot.com
There is definite discrimination where women are concerned in some South American countries – whether this has to do with the machismo culture or religion, I have no clue. I attended the Arabian Brazilian Nationals last year and in four days I saw not ONE female rider/handler/groom/attendant. The result of having no women in this male-testosterone world, the horses are handled roughly and there is obvious and visual abuse. I believe if women were just physically there in all phases of the horse world in Brazil, we would see less abuse.
i just wanted to respond regarding the comment here about women not being allowed to show Paso Fino stallions. I am afraid that simply is not true. Women can and do show Paso stallions all the time. (myself included).
Women are definitely allowed to ride Paso Fino stallions in shows — one of the top Paso trainers/exhibitors is a woman, Kelly Cox. I have two Paso stallions and show both. The PFHA does not allow children under the age of 13 to exhibit stallions (under saddle or in hand) but that applies to both boys and girls.
I visited some Paso Fino farms in Puerto Rico a few years ago — and was given a ride on a show-winning stallion by one very nice farm owner. They were surprised a woman rode, but they were quite generous with letting me ride the horses. My surprise was many of the trainers there aren’t treated with the respect that we give trainers here (the owners are who are important, it seemed). And they don’t geld ANYTHING if they can help it. So if you are riding a male horse in PR, it’s probably a stallion!
OOPS! So sorry, Paso riders! I’m sorry I made that mistake! And now that I think about it, I do remember seeing women on stallions in some of the Paso classes we have out here. So I guess that’s only in the Peruvian horses that we see that…?
Thanks for the clarification!
Having spent a number of years at “the track”, as a groom, pony girl, and owner/trainer I honestly never saw any sign of discrimination towards women. We were a pretty closeknit family.
I worked in the industry in the 80s, and then it was about in the 19th century in many ways. I won’t go into the imaginary caste system they stuck to, the attempts at archaic British inflections and expressions, or the drugs (did I mention hard drugs?). You asked for just the gender-related challenges, which was probably wise.
If I hadn’t been so young and naive, I might have stood up to ******* Mill Farm in ***********, Virginia and Del Ray, Florida for:
1. Having my name changed from ******* to “Baby;”
2. Being expected to understand that soon the boss, Ed, would be expecting me to sleep with him, which would not be a problem because I was from the big city and not one of these clueless, naive girls;
2. Not getting the rides boys were getting, but let’s face it, it’s possible my riding sucked and they were good;
3. That non-riding groom who declared himself foreman whenever the trainer was away, and got really, really mad if you didn’t do what he said (not illegal, just annoying
Your biggest enemy in the barn were the other women. There were few friendships; mostly tenuous alliances against a common enemy if you could find one. Divide and conquer. I never thought these places were subject to the same laws and regulations as any normal employer, and what would I have done about it anyway ? Nothing, because:
1. I lied about my age to work there (so, my bad)
2. Nobody would back me up because they were illiterate, undocumented, or didn’t see a problem with the way it all works
3. I just would have gotten fired and I wanted to ride racehorses soooo bad.
OMG – I worked there = I know EXACTLY who you are talking about. If you worked inthe training barn, you were fair game. Layups, not so much, which is where I was. What a pig he was! He walked thru the barn at Christmas giving all the girls Christmas Kisses – I was cleaning a stall and when he put his arms around me to try and kiss me I struggled and fought, did everything but scream “RAPE”. He high=tailed it out of there so fast, and never bothered me again!
I have no experience with the farm, and hadn’t heard about this before, but maybe it makes a bit of sense? We all know that our own hormones can greatly influence the behavior of the animals around us, and perhaps the farm just doesn’t want the added liability of the female hormones going wild at different times of the month influencing some very study horses. There have been times of the month that the young geldings I work with act very study and dangerous around me, and sometimes I have to just walk softly and carry a big stick knowing that my own hormones are confusing them.
I’m not saying it’s right not to hire women, but I assume they hire women for other work. I know it’s difficult to grasp, but maybe in this case it’s justified.
And no, I’m not saying that women can’t successfully work with stallions. There are literally millions of examples of women successfully (even alone) managing studs, even whole stud farms with multiple standing studs. I’m just saying that maybe they have decided to eliminate one more variable in a world of chances taken with a big, potentially dangerous animal.
That’s a MYTH. Stallions know the difference between human female hormones and equine female hormones. I have owned and bred stallions for over 40 years, and I *never* saw even the slightest difference in their behavior regardless of my or any other woman’s cycle. I know many women who handle stallions who would die laughing if you suggested this old wives’ tale in their presence.
I’m currently enrolled in a registered vet tech program and I am taking an equine reproduction call this semester. I was told last week by the instructor that we were not suppost to handle the stallions during our periods. I have been been handling stallions for over 10 years and I have never had one react. I don’t know why such a smart man would stay such a stupid thing. He graduated from A&M- makes me wonder what they are teaching down there…..
Ask him for PROOF!
There’s a tiny, tiny element of truth to that old story… but not in the way some people think there is. Just think about it logically:
We all know that during certain times of the month, some women some of the time experience hormonal fluxes that often fill them with conflicting emotions. I have personally had days where I’m ready to kill one moment and ready to cry the next! It doesn’t happen every time, and it doesn’t happen to every woman.
We ALSO all know, however, that horses (and some would say particularly stallions) are extremely sensitive to emotional nuances. It’s a survival method for them, and so of course being faced with such confusing, conflicting emotions could rile a horse–any horse. Most horsepeople I know say that if you’re not emotionally prepared to to handle a horse, don’t go near one. That applies as much to men as women.
Just like most old wives tale–or old horsemens tales–there’s a grain of fact, and a heap of fiction.
Plus, if women’s hormones were in any way similar to a mare’s, why would a stallion flip out when we’re menstruating (not fertile)? If there were any truth to this rumor at all, it would only make sense if it happened in the middle of our cycle, when we’re ovulating!
I think I took the same seminar and got the same advice. I totally agreed with the man — it’s VERY dangerous for a woman to handle stallions during her period. For the stallion, not the woman.
alphamare – While it is a MYTH that stallions flip over ovulating women, I have had to deal with several stallions who got snorty and freaked at that time. ‘Course they’ve also flipped out over blood in general so not entirely surprising but I can totally see how it would lead to such a wive’s take.
I have worked with colts to stallions and never had one of them react to my “hormones”. I have had youngsters act “studdish” but a stomp of my foot or sudden movement towards them shut them down very quickly. We have 4 stallions now and I would not hesitate to handle any of them. Then again, all were handled young and taught manners as babies.
That is absolute BS. Women do not smell like a mare in heat when we’re menstruating. Horses can be in tune with our emotions, but NOT our hormones. I have owned stallions, mares and geldings and never once have I had an issue when I’ve been menstruating. Now if I’m in a crabby mood whether I’m menstruating or not, that’s a whole ‘nother story.
I have never understood that myth–why do people assume that dogs, horses, cats, etc. will be attracted to us if we’re “in heat?” We’re an entirely different SPECIES. Are (normal) men attracted to a mare or dog in heat? NO. Then why would it go vice versa?
I completely agree that other species are not attracted to us during our periods. That is ridiculous. I can sorta see where the rumor came from though, as I’m sure some stallions act differently towards us when we smell different (even if we can’t smell it). I can tell when someone in my family is on their period because my dogs keep trying to sniff their crotch, and they never do that otherwise. Funny and annoying, but definitely not attraction. They just think it smells weird!
My guess it’s not the HORMONES that the stallions have a problem with, but the behaviors and attitudes that some (DEFINITELY not ALL!) women put on while their ‘courses’ are running. Some of us ladies have very real upheavals of mood and physiology, others have nothing but a few naggeldy cramps and a little less patience with the world. Still another (i like to think VERY SMALL) group of women use their montly periods as an excuse to act like shrews and bo-hags… because they’ve been taught that people MIGHT shrug off their antics as being ‘natural’ to a woman on a hormone swing.
I don’t have periods any more.. but I can testify to the FACT that when my emotions are running away with me, my horses don’t want to be near me any more than I do!
If you were a breeding stallion on the way to meet the ladies, would you rather have more female hormones around you or an asston of other “stallions” in your way? Hormones work both ways…
/also it’s not true
Hi, I’m new here
Maybe it’s short-sighted of that farm to not employ women as stallion handlers. I’ve worked for other places where if the same thing wasn’t official policy, it was nevertheless true.
As for myself, you could say that I’m on the fence about the issue. I think a woman should be allowed to do any job that she proves herself capable of, no different from a man. At the same time, here’s a truth as I see it: most women cannot handle stallions. Not all, but most. Why? Because most women lack the dominance to impose their will on a stallion. My experience working with women and teaching people in general has shown me that I have a hard enough time trying to convince ya’ll to be dominant enough to get your GELDING’S respect, nevermind a stud. Most people I’ve met in this business, if they told me they wanted to handle a stallion I’d strongly advise against it. On top of that, here’s another uncomfortable truth: if you’re anywhere near ‘that time of the month’, they (the stallions) know and it will affect their behavior toward you.
I expect I’ll get a bunch of comments in response to this, talking about “I have a stallion and we get along just fine, thank you”. Maybe so. I know there are plenty of well-behaved studs in the world. I’m not talking about your relationship with your personal horse. Anyway, I doubt you were the one who did all of his early training to get him past his natural bad manners. If you did, respect to you. Most of you didn’t. I’m talking about you people, going into a job where you don’t know the horse and there’s a good possibility that you’re just going to get killed because Triggur doesn’t care that you just want to be a friends and is going to kick your ass because you’re too nice to kick his. Don’t like it, and really want to handle stallions? Then make sure you have a backbone of steel with nerves to go with it. Otherwise, stick to feeding carrots to your old gelding who pushes you around but is still too sweet to kill you.
You’ve been around a lot of Parelli followers, haven’t you?
I assure you that most of the women I know have no problem at all handling stallions, imposing manners upon them from suckling on forward, and so on. I have a very well behaved one myself. I also disagree with the argument that stallions are naturally badly behaved. If they are, they ought to be cut. Mine wasn’t rotten when he was a yearling, he wasn’t rotten when he was a two year old and he’s not rotten now. I know many stallions with good temperaments (however, they have always been handled properly). I’ve also seen a bad tempered stallion reformed with better treatment and regular turn-out.
Agreed all the way. I think it’s absurd that a woman can’t handle a horse as sufficiently as anyone. The best barn owners, trainers, instructors, and managers in my area are all female. In competitions, it’s overwhelmingly female. Even the stallion owners/handlers/trainers.
I’ve never heard that a stallion will treat a woman differently when she’s at her time of the month. That’s the biggest load of garbage I’ve ever heard. Where the hell did that come from?
I have never handled a stallion, but I honestly feel I could handle it perfectly well. I don’t back down from any horse. I HAVE handled alpha and difficult mares…and really, honestly, some mares, when in heat, can act just as bad as any stallion ever foaled. I’ve known mares where if they were mine, risk or no risk, certain things would be coming OUT.
I think if you can handle the alpha mare of thirty head, you can handle a stallion…the average stallion is probably easier. ESPECIALLY if you’re female….an alpha mare is more likely to challenge a woman than a man, and they can and will challenge pretty seriously if they want to.
I’ve heard it rumored, but it have also been told by several female stallion owners/handlers that it’s absolutely false.
Actually, stallions tend to behave better for a competent woman handler, especially in the breeding shed. Men seems more prone to get into a testosterone challenge with a stallion — and since stallions are *not* the bosses of the herd — the alpha MARE is — the stallion is less likely to challenge a competent woman.
I have handled several stallions who had been badly messed up for breeding by men determined to maintain dominance and “show the stallion who’s boss.” That attitude is exactly wrong in the breeding shed — the stallion must display dominance in order to perform — that doesn’t mean he’s allowed to misbehave, but he *must* be allowed to be the male. Fighting with a stallion in the breeding shed is the fastest way to create either a “shy breeder” or a dangerous horse that tries to attack everything in sight.
That said, the big issue is competence. Not everyone, man or woman, is competent to handle a stallion. Not everyone, man or woman, *wants* to handle a stallion, for whatever reason, and that is just fine. Anyone who wants to learn needs (IMHO) to locate an experienced, calm, competent stud handler and LEARN — this is another case where expecting Nature to take care of it can really get you in trouble, because there is nothing really “natural” about hand breeding.
Men seems more prone to get into a testosterone challenge with a stallion — and since stallions are *not* the bosses of the herd — the alpha MARE is — the stallion is less likely to challenge a competent woman.
“Swinging dick syndrome”, as we liked to call it.
My first ‘real’ after school job was as a groom at a Standardbred Stable. I got a lot of “Is it yer time of the month?” jokes, if and when I ever dared to stand up for myself, but that’s about it. I was just a kid, so mainly I found that everyone was overly protective of me, in an annoying “would you treat a guy like this?” kind of way.
CelticHorseman, welcome to Fugly, thanks for your post
There are two things I would like to address here. One is your comment about “that time of the month” and how stallions react to it. I think there’s something you are missing here about female reproductive cycles. When a woman is having ‘her time’, it is not the optimum time for breeding. She is sloughing the lining of her uterus and the ovum. Her ideal time to become pregnant is actually about a week before her cycle starts, when she ovulates; that is when her pheromones increase and she is most likely to conceive. So, if a stallion were to ‘react’ to a woman’s reproductive status, it would occur before a woman’s monthly sloughing cycle.
I have never seen or known of a horse to react to human pheromones. Do your mares react to your hormones? When they are in season and you’re around, do they back up to you and pee on you to let you know they’re ready to breed? It stands to reason if you believe that stallions react to women due to their hormones, mares would react to human males due to their hormones as well. Animals not of the same species with a total inability to impregnate one another naturally are unaware the others reproductive status, unless you actively teach them to pay attention.
I have had my stallion since he was a year and a half old. I bought him from a single woman who managed all horses on her farm with the assistance of another woman. A very petite woman (not a professional) started him as a full grown horse for me. Currently, he is off at training with a professional who routinely successfully rides and trains stallions. The trainer is also female. Now, I have a husband, and my husband has tried to learn to breed my stallion. My husband, the horse-lover he is, has a more difficult time handling my stallion during breeding than I do, as my husband is nervous about handling a thousand pounds of excited male; he is more docile than I am. My stallion is well trained and respects me, and I’ve been the only one to handle him when he breeds. He is respectful, never pulls, never bites or strikes when going to breed. He walks patiently and responds to my cues. He will stand by the mare and wait for me to tell him it is ok before he covers her.
I have met many men who don’t know how to dominate a stallion, including men who were heavily involved in churches and religions where the man was the boss, and they were in management positions at their respective workplaces. I’ve had to handle their stallions for them, as they could not do it themselves (including a mini stallion who would try to strike his male owner in the face at any given opportunity. I never had an issue when handling the mini, I let him know who was boss within 5 minutes and he was always good for me after that).
At any rate, sorry this is long-winded, and I understand it’s quite unlikely to change your perspective, but given that the horse industry is overloaded with foals and a majority of horse owners and handlers are female, rest assured that women are perfectly capable of handling breeding animals, including stallions.
Zellgirl, BRAVO!!! Kudos to you on your superbly succint and to the point……. counterpoint to those absurd beliefs about women/stallions/periods. I especially liked the way you described in ‘laymen’s” terms (pardon the pun), the theoretically reverse situation of mares in heat reacting to human males. IMHO, I think it should be sent to every equine publication in existance today. A must read for all the men out there. Hopefully it will open some eyes, and minds.
I have to agree here about stallions…or mares for that matter. It really has little to do with your hormones but everything to do with your confidence in handling ANY horse. I have handled few stallion, my choice as I only ever owned one who became a great gelding at the age of two. That was in part because he was a crypt and we wished to give nature every chance to make those thingies drop…and save major surgery (and money). As a stallion he became more challenging than I ever wished to deal with. My estrus never influenced him I am certain. His brain was connected directly to the hot little balls he didn’t know how to use. A gelding I now have has made a face or two while I was on my period but I can say without a doubt it had nothing to do with my hormonal influx but more to do with that musky odor some times we carry while menstruating. (I just know there are men on here that will make comment, if not openly, but more to themselves about this). The thing is, as a prey animal, horses are more sensitive to smells that only THEY can smell ( so there fella, you cannot smell it!)
So in a nut shell, a woman is just as capable to handle any horse so long as she carries the confidence and knowledge to handle stallions. With that said, any horse can be a pain in the ass to deal with, some more than others, but training has more to do with it than anything. Teaching a horse to respect the handler, regardless to gender is vital to that horse’s behavior.
Men who hold the stigma that women are not capable of handling stallions are using that as an excuse to not wanting women handling any horse. They are commonly bigots with narrow minds. Seen it all too many times.
I’ve encountered a lot more dominant mares than stallions. IMO, stallions just assume they’re dominant (like lions) and don’t do much to back that up unless they’re totally rank and unhandled. Alpha mares require a lot more posturing and pushing. Stallions are not physically stronger or inherently crazier, they’re just liable to get away with more because people are stupid.
No, I have never owned or trained a stallion. Other people have indeed trained or not trained the stallions I’ve worked with. I’ve known some horrible geldings, some fairly nasty studs, and some godawful foals of both genders, but the worst examples of pushiness and lack of respect toward people have always been mares. A lot of mares are sweethearts or don’t care about dominance, but a fair number of them are alphas or just bitchy. Please note that I’m a pro-mare girl. I currently own two and I don’t understand the anti-mare mentality some dumbass cowboys around here have.
If a breeder wants to sequester stallions FOR THE PROTECTION OF THE STALLIONS AND MARES in order to prevent them from getting riled up when potentially smelling female hormones, I don’t agree but it’s the breeder’s choice. If they believe that the stallions truly do behave dangerously when in-season human females are around then it’s a safety issue which they could choose to avoid rather than learn to goddamn handle. If they believe that women just aren’t capable of doing the job then that’s discrimination.
Honestly I’d like to see a scientific study on the frequency of flehmen response, frequency of erection, and changes in behavior in studs when handled by women in various stages of cycle. I think the whole thing is just an excuse for discrimination. Prove me wrong.
I have to say I think the ability to handle a stallion has nothing to do with gender and everything to do with confidence and horsemanship. If someone is too timid to give a stallion a good smack when he gets in their space or gets out of line, it’s because they lack the confidence and experience, not because they’re a woman. Men can be timid riders just as often as women.
I think people have the perception that women aren’t strong enough/pushy enough to handle stallions because that’s what a lot of sterotypes from society tell us. I handled and rode stallions as a 12 year old girl and never had any issues keeping them focused on me and their work rather than other horses passing by. Women do not innately lack the ability to be dominant, but unfortunately some women are trained from childhood that they are delicate flowers that should be sweet and submissive. Saying women aren’t confident and dominant enough to handle stallions is like saying all stallions are rank beasts. What really matters is how you raise a person or a horse to be, and poor training in the past can usually be corrected with enough hard work.
You’re being ridiculous. I know plenty of MEN who have no backbone and are scared of horses. It has NOTHING to do with gender, and everything to do with individual personalities. If someone can’t command the respect of an animal, it is because of who they are, not what is or isn’t hanging between their legs.
I worked at a barn and handled the stallions when cleaning their stalls and turning them out. I hardly knew these stallions, they were not my personal horse. I had no trouble managing them. I never noticed any difference in their behavior towards me during my period either.
Frankly, my mare can be more of a handful when she’s got a hair up her butt then either of those two stallions ever are. And I handle my mare just fine thank you.
Sorry but I am less than five foot and have handled stallions of all breeds, all my life. The idea that women are less forceful than men is not only very outdated it is laughable!
The answer to a bad mannered stallion is to teach him manners.
The answer to a rank stallion is to geld him.
Racehorses, yes, OK, they are different in that some are rank and some are just nuts but most are totally bored out of their minds.
The answer is still to geld them, however.
A gelding can run as fast as a colt and a stable girl that has been injured by a rank entire can sue just as hard as a stable boy…try telling a female injury lawyer women aren’t as forceful as men sometime!!!
Any horse at any time can physically dominate any person – man or woman – if they so wish and BELIEVE they can do it. Being a woman or a man has nothing to do with it. Being a woman (or a man) who will be the dominant leader in any equine situation has everything to do with it.
I’m way tougher than a lot of men I know around large animals. But that’s because I grew up around them. I know I can’t physically stop a horse from hurting me or hurt it back, but I sure as hell can make them THINK I can. That usually does the trick.
What a pile. I worked at an private Arabian show and breeding farm that stood Padron’s Psyche for several years. These are Arab halter horses and they intentionally didn’t handle them much so they would be “fiery.” They were trained for halter showing only. You don’t get much more hot-tempered than this.
There were about 5-6 breeding stallions plus younger stallions/colts. My daily responsibilities included grooming them, cleaning their stalls with them inside, showing them to clients, lounging, etc.
There were four staff and three of them were girls. None of us had any problems. The one guy was definitely at the bottom in terms of his ability to “handle” the horses, stallions, babies, whatever.
This is GREAT!!! I am a professional horse trainer. I train stallions, I train mares, I train geldings. The only difference in a stallion is that stallions tend to be gutless and lazy. That’s it. And, yes I have handled stallions for breeding plenty of times. To be honest, I never even considered my menstrual cycle in any of this… Never noticed a difference in stallion’s behavior, either.
Celtichorse: Have you ever actually seen a horse in real life?
This is actually not surprising at all. My mom lived in Kentucky for 2 years about a year ago and she started a job working for one of the big horse transporting services in KY. For starters she was only allowed to drive the local vans back and forth to take mares to and from the breeding shed and drop animals at headquarters so they could be loaded onto the “big” trailers that generally could not get into a lot of the farms. Her and her boyfriend started at the same time she had 10 years more truck driving experience, including being licensed for hazardous materials, had and has a better and safer driving record, and has much more horse experience as well. Many of the big stables with “owners from other countries” gave her and the company a really hard time about driving their animals. Many of them would not even let a woman haul their horses. She was also fired without cause, and this company has a reputation of hiring women for a few months during the spring and firing them without cause. They had roughly 100 drivers and only about 2-3 were women and none of them were allowed to keep their job long.
She said the only TB facility she ever remembered seeing women working at was 3 Chimneys. Most barns would not even have woman as grooms. She has however been in the Claiborne breeding shed and has witnessed the horses breeding as she often had to trailer mares in for breeding. As she puts it she would just walk in as it was part of her job and when they would make a stink about it she would tell them they couldn’t make her leave cause she was doing her job. She said it always made them very uncomfortable.
I know she also spent a lot of time trying to find jobs as grooms and as a foal watcher, of which she was never hired. Overall she found the whole experience to be very disheartening and sad for not only women in the industry but for many of the horses as well.
So, you have no sex discrimination laws in the US??
Try this in Europe and you would get the book thrown at you.
After everyone had finished falling around laughing, of course.
Yes there are sex discrimination laws in the US. Just try to prove it is another thing. that goes for any industry. I have just that going on right now, but the attorneys have told me that it is a difficult complaint to prove. Mostly because the offending company will lie under oath…
I certainly was verbally and sexually harassed when I worked for one season as a racetrack groom.
However, I didn’t find that I was discriminated against based on my skills or ability to work with the horses at all. It was the atmosphere was very sexist. Mainly, it was the men working at the track, not my employers, that were the problem. I don’t think that this is something unique to the track though: I had the same experience when working for a landscaping company during university. It was the sexist attitude of the men I worked with, not my employer, that was the problem there as well.
At the track, basically, I put up with the sexist comments of the men and humored them, rather than tearing a piece off of their hides like I wanted to, in order to “get along” with everyone in the barn. One older woman that i spoke to, the wife of a long-time trainer, described the racetrack as a bastion of discrimination against women, i.e., behind the times.
One other comment regarding this post, though. I DO indeed think of the horse world as one with plenty of discrimination against women, unlike Fugly.
Why do I think this? Because so many young horsewomen are taken advantage of when it comes to pay. As Fugly says, “Most hunter/jumper and dressage barns are staffed largely by women, as are Arabian, AQHA, APHA and ApHC barns.” That’s too true where I live and work as well, and the fact is that, outside of the racetrack, I have hardly ever had any male co-workers below the level of trainer.
I don’t have any hard evidence to back this up, but I believe that groom’s wages would be MUCH higher and more fair if the profession were dominated by young men rather than young women. There is a huge pay equity problem in the horse world and I think that’s part of the reason that so few men work at stables outside of the racetrack. I do not think that men would accept the low wages that young women do for what is dangerous and difficult work with long hours. In this sense, I believe that many many barn owners and trainers and those managing boarding facilities take advantage of women as a matter of course: It is built into the economic model that allows them to run their facilities.
I disagree, because look at how poorly paid and poorly treated a lot of the male Hispanic barn workers are. I don’t think it has anything to do with gender when it comes to pay. It’s that a lot of people want to work with horses, so that drives the value of it down. It’s like Hollywood. Do you realize that a lot of the lower-budget straight-to-cable movies you see, no one was paid a DIME for a lot of the crew positions? And worked 12+ hour days routinely? People who are desperate to work in a certain area will get taken advantage of, every time.
Fair comment for sure.
Up here in Canada, we don’t have the great number of Hispanic workers that you do in the US. Only some in the hunter-jumper world. Here, like you say, it’s the keen women who want to work with horses and who will work for practically free that keep the wages down. From my point of view it’s not very fair from a larger labour-rights perspective. I still DO think that it has to do with gender though, much as with other professions, like “secretarial” or office-admin work, which is traditionally-dominated by females and traditionally overpaid.
Rest assured that I am not going out of my way to disagree with you! It’s just that, in my years of work as a groom, being constantly massively underpaid for my solid skills with horses rubbed me the wrong way and made me downright angry: I acted as barn manager many times when one employer was away at shows, including dealing with vets, emergencies, and farriers, and all for $11 dollars Canadian an hour?
Gah, I meant to say traditionally UNDERPAID. That’s what I get from posting while at my non-equine job.
I agree. The reason so many women get taken advantage of in that situation is that so many of them want to work with horses badly enough to take the bad pay and long hours (like myself.) I’ve yet to meet a man that I would consider “horse crazy” in the sense that many women are – to them it’s a hobby or business, no different from any other.
I don’t think you can compare Hispanic men to white men in our society. There is a huge stigma against Hispanics because of many people’s bias against immigrants, and I would say in many cases they rank almost as low as women in terms of people’s prejudices — maybe lower, depending on where in the U.S. you live. Also, it is a proven fact that female-dominated professions tend to be lower paid than male-dominated professions. Our society just doesn’t place a high value on anything seen as “women’s work,” and to make things worse, women are often socialized to accept lower wages without question (whereas men are taught to always ask for more). Wages in the horse industry are therefore set by the fact that women dominate it, and if a Hispanic male is desperate enough to do a woman’s job, well then, it just confirms society’s prejudices against them.
Exactly!
devvie, I noticed that you stated several times that it wasn’t the employer, but the employees that were sexist. Well, then obviously the *employer* is the problem. They’ve created a workplace where it is deemed ok to treat fellow employees poorly. I’m not saying that women “running to the boss to complain over every little thing” is ok, but ultimately what SHOULD happen is this:
The woman complains to “management” that there is generalized sexism going on.
The employer talks to the men in a group and says this is absolutely unacceptable; I have no names, just general malaise, but this will NOT fly in this company. Bottom line.
Next time I will be taking names, and handing out pink slips.
Yes, the most ignorant of the guys on the crew will be asshats about it, and you may have to put up with a bit more crap because of it, but it’s the RIGHT thing to do. Why? Because the NEXT girl won’t be treated as poorly.
It comes down to this… if we all sit around and DO nothing, it may make OUR lives a bit easier (oh, I could find a different job, a different industry… blah blah blah), what what does that do for all the hard working, honest, deserving women who WANT to make a career out of it – coming up behind you?
Sexism is an issue. It’s an issue for ALL women. And that means it’s an issue for all MEN. Those men are sons, husbands, fathers, brothers. Would they want their mom, wife, daughter or sister treated this way??????
That’s ridiculous! Around here, the horse world is dominated by women. I would guess that at least 90% of the population is female in my area. I have never heard of women not being allowed to handle stallions. What in the world???
Hi Cathy:
Sorry for the off-topic message, but please check your resqtb email for an email with “Enumclaw Auction” in the title. Thanks!
Just to clarify….I’m not sure how wide spread this is in the racing industry. The story I posted yesterday actually came from a stallion groom at Claiborne. Two or three years ago I was on a tour of their facilities and noticed there were no women in the stallion barn. They do not advertise that they don’t hire women to handle the stallions, but when I made the observation to our tour guide, the groom, he explained that they do not hire women to handle the stallions and do not permit women to enter the breeding shed, but that women are employed in other areas of the farm (he then related the story of the owner who wanted to watch Seeking the Gold breed her mare). They do hire women, just not for the stallions (and yes, I agree that this is narrow minded and bigoted).
I don’t think this is true of all farms down there. In fact, I think women play an important role in the racing industry, just as they do in other aspects of the horse world. Racing is big in my area (southern ohio/northern ky), and if one goes to a track or a farm, you see many women in many different roles: grooms, exercise riders, jockeys, even trainers. I do not know first hand, however, how they are treated behind the scenes, with this one exception.
OK, one more comment about Hispanic workers vs. female workers . . . the links between discrimination of women and discrimation of foreign or non-white workers are many and very clearly documented by labour and women’s rights activists.
I have been told by many in the TB industry that yes, women are not hired to work with the stallions or in the breeding shed. Many of the men seem to just get all squinchy and squirmy if a woman is present during a cover — I dunno, maybe they think a woman will compare them to the stallion?
Of course, the TB industry as a whole is one of the most hidebound in tradition, and oh, my, that a female — even the stallion’s OWNER — should see him perform, oh my goodness, she might faint or be “ruined” or, or, or …. notice that it’s the 21st century or something.
uh, yea. When I was taking Stallion Management in college, it was the guys that were, as you say, “squinchy” (love that word) in the breeding shed. They were also the ones that had the worse problem when it came time to, well, clean the stud’s equipment
OMG, NO KIDDING! When our gelding that our husband and I own was a stallion, guess who had to clean him before breeding? YEP, IT WAS ME! And I still have to do his sheath cleaning–my husband gets absolutely squinchy about it.
What I don’t understand are people ewho want to be vets or vet techs and they get grossed out by stallions and mares and all the horse breeding issues (cleaning the stud, ultrasounds for the mare, etc.). Um, you want to be a vet, don’t you think you need to have some emotional strength to deal with this stuff?
IDK about in the US as I’ve never been involved in the racing industry. However, when I was in Oman last year I saw women involved in nearly every sector there. Including the horse industry which is supported strongly by the Sultan of Oman.
Women Jockeys enjoying a day at the races.
They don’t look very repressed. It would be sad if a predominantly Muslim country was more progressive than the US and Canada when it came to racing and women.
They did race. Not with the men. They had a race that day all to themselves. The women’s race. There were also women doing dressage, traditional Omani horsmenship and vaulting. One woman(the first to accomplish it )stood on the back of a galloping horse.
http://www.waho.org/images%5CWAHO2009%5CRoyalCavalryFestival2%5CRoyal-Cavalry-festival-The-first-Omani-girl-to-perform-this-difficult-feat.jpg
I was impressed.
There are women jocks in the States (and Canada, I assume). The real question is whether the women were allowed to work in the breeding shed. While many places allow women to ride or handle horses, many are still stuck on the idea that a stallion will react differently to a woman.
I did enjoy the pictures, and was surprised by the story.
I’ve been a lurker on this blog for about 2 years now. I’ve never really been inspired to comment before. Until reading this post that is.
Let me start by saying I live in Kentucky and have since the age of 4.
Around here; it’s just common knowledge that they discriminate against women in racing. I’m actually really really surprised you didn’t realize this, Fugly. Women are meant to dress up, wear heels and watch the races. They don’t go in the barns.
My personal experiences: when I was young (and naive) I called about a job posting I saw in the paper. The lady just needed someone to clean stalls. When I called her she told me “hun I need a man. I’ve got 30 stalls I need cleaned out daily and you just can’t handle that.”
A female exercise rider told me a story about her working a horse on a track. She was right on the rail and there was a group of mexicans standing by the rail making comments. Rude comments. When she rode past one of them reached up and slapped her on the ass.
I wanted to be an exercise rider for years. And tried to weasel my way into that world for years. But, being a female, you have to know someone who knows someone to get in.
Rarely rarely rarely will the big barns every hire women here. Three Chimneys. Calumet. Lane’s End. Gainsborough. They’re all the same. Hiring order is: mexican males. White males. Females.
In fact, growing up I was actually surprised when I found out that women rule other equine disciplines. Where as with you, Fugly, it was the other way around. But then again, growing up in Kentucky, it takes you a while to realize people do other things with horses then race them.
I spent sveral years at the track. Started out as a groom, then decided to pony morning and afternoons and eventually galloped. I never had any problems. I was always treated fairly. Spent every winter on a farm or training track and was glad I did. At the time I loved it, couldn’t think of a better job. Working on the backside is definately different. It is a tight knit community. You learn a lot in a short amount of time.
Now I am a proud owner of 2 OTTBs.
I galloped on the track for 12 years up until 2001 and I never had any issues. I’m not trying to toot my own horn, but I workded for the tops in the industry and got on many graded stakes winners ahead of my male counterparts. Most trainers liked hiring girls because we gave the horses a little something extra special and treated them as our own. How and ever, competition and cat fighting between the girls could be a downside. You know a lot of back stabbing as is typical with any girl groups!
Now I don’t think woman would have issues handling stallions, but lets be honest here, you aren’t just going to hire any newbie to work with stallions and hope it all goes well. I don’t think it’s any place to “learn” on the job. I’m sure many woman are capable of handling TB stallions but personally it would be nothing I would want to do nor would I feel it’s something I have to do to prove my worth as a horsewoman. I excell in other areas men can’t and don’t feel the need to fight the good fight when it comes to this. I got on some right unruly colts when galloping and felt much safer in the saddle rather than on the ground. I am small so probably a contributing factor. I’m sorry this may sound old fashioned but sometimes it is nice to have a man around with a bit more clout and I don’t mean to beat them, I mean just more strength. I have my own 2yo TB colts here at the moment who are still going out together and lead in and out on ropes. They are around mares and filles and know how to act, but actually breeding stallions doing live cover day in and day out is a different ball game.
Terri
The wife of a friend of mine worked at Claiborne Farms as a veterinarian. I’m sure if they were sexist they would have hired a male veterinarian. They treated her very well from what I know. She lived on site, too.
Having worked at Emerald Downs, I can’t say I saw any favoritism towards one gender or the other. There were members of both sexes working all jobs – trainers, grooms, exercisers, veterinarians, etc. Sure, some of the older men who were not so well educated were pigs, but you’ll see that anywhere.
The guys would talk about women behind their backs, especially if they were young and feisty. Personally I thought the men enjoyed having the women around to look at and dream.
I’ve been in the Thoroughbred industry for 30 years, have galloped horses at most major racetracks, and a few minor ones. I have held a trainer’s liscence for 25 years, first at Suffolk Downs and Rockingham Park. I’ve never had a problem getting a job, or being paid more than adequatly. A fair amout of trainers prefer to have women galloping or rubbing their horses, because they usually have a lighter touch than men. As for being harrased, or men making nasty comments, that will only continue if a woman allows it. Anytime I went somewhere new, that behavoir from any men was quickly nipped in the bud, and afterwards I recieved nothing but respect from them. As for working aroung THOROUGHBRED stallions, I’m sure there are some (post menopausel) women who could do it, but why would they want to. These stallions aren’t all mean, but most are, as well as being very big, and very strong. I am about as good a horseperson as could be, but I wouldn’t want to be on the end of a shank with a breeding stallion, leave that to the big boys, that’s what they are there for. Anyone who hasn’t been around hundreds or thousands of racing or breeding thoroughbreds can have no idea how rank they are, and they have been broken and trained properly, it’s just how they are. I have a 6 yr old gelding who is the love of my life, and a super racehorse. He doesn’t have a mean bone in him, but he is rank, and wild as hell, it’s just his personality. I can do anything with him, but there will be a fair amount of standing on his hind legs involved, if it’s on the ground stuff. Just going to his paddock will involve several airs above the ground. I just laugh, because that’s him. If he was mean, like some stallions are, there would be no way I would handle him. Incidentaly, once you get a leg up on him, he is all business, never puts a foot out of place except for a few happy leaps. I guess what I am saying is , I have never been discriminated against in this business, and I feel MOST women have no business handling stallions.
“I feel MOST women have no business handling stallions.”
Ok, most PEOPLE have no business handling stallions. Most people have no business teaching calculus or doing brain surgery. Do you mean most WOMEN or most HORSEWOMEN? Why should women be less qualified than men?
Please explain. What disqualifies women: physical weakness, lack of mass, lack of skill, hormones, submissiveness? Or do you feel that it’s dangerous for everyone and only women are smart enough to avoid it?
I’m a cripple. I’m not physically strong or fast enough to handle really badly behaved horses and I’m fragile enough to get killed. I’d say that every physically sound horsewoman I know is capable of handling breeding stock.
If you have to hire a bunch of thugs to wrestle your stud, YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG.
. He doesn’t have a mean bone in him, but he is rank, and wild as hell, it’s just his personality. I can do anything with him, but there will be a fair amount of standing on his hind legs involved, if it’s on the ground stuff. Just going to his paddock will involve several airs above the ground. I just laugh, because that’s him. If he was mean, like some stallions are, there would be no way I would handle him. Incidentaly, once you get a leg up on him, he is all business, never puts a foot out of place except for a few happy leaps. I guess what I am saying is , I have never been discriminated against in this business, and I feel MOST women have no business handling stallions.
Seriously, WTF?
That ISN’T ‘Just personality’ – that’s just crap ground handling. I knew a stallion who was a snotty little shit (at first) – ears pinned in his stall, dancing the whole nine, he easily had a thousand pounds on me and he knew it. However, in a fairly short amount of time he learned that such crap was *unacceptable*, and while I may have been physically smaller, I WAS THE BOSS.
If I was around, and required him to move back, he damn well did it. If I needed to get into his stall, he shifted – even if he was full of piss and vinegar – that was for OUTSIDE, and once he’d been given the OK to boogie on his own. That ‘snotty little shit’ learned that I may be the BOSS, but I was ALSO the source of some awesome treats, and some serious neck pats and scritches, as long as he behaved like a gentleman.
I think by excusing this behavior, you’re setting him up for a date in a Paris restaurant if he ever leaves your hands…
You said exactly how I feel about stallion handling. Mine is a big pet but it’s BECAUSE he knows we’ll clean his clock if he isn’t. Because we have firm boundaries that are consistently enforced, we can handfeed him and pet him and snuggle him and I can ride him in a halter. He knows the rules and he knows there will never be an exception to the rules. I think I’ve had to actually hit him once in the last year – when he moved to the new barn and thought he could whinny at girls while being led. Other than that, his life is drama free because we’ve made proper behavior very clear to him.
I CAN do whatever needs to be done with him, my point is , most without experience with Thoroughbreds couldn’t. He knows when it’s play time, and when it’s time for business. I ask him to move and he moves, but he’s not above giving you a bite in the back if you’re not paying attention. Should I beat the crap out of him fot it? I just stay out of the way of his teeth, and if he crosses the line and gets too rough, he gets enough of a whack to tell him it’s time to be nice. He gets plenty of treats, but not if he’s being rude. If he is being a shit when I go to feed, he doesn’t get fed til he backs up and stands in the corner, it only takes pulling the feedtub away to get my point across. I know he is much more spoiled than the rest of my horses, but they are all for sale, and he isn’t, so I can let him have his fun, and he still does his job very well. Since he’s won two races at Gulfstream, and ran second in his only start at Saratoga this summer, I’m inclined to keep him happy. If that involves standing on his hind legs playing, so be it, he doesn’t do it in the paddock on race day.
but he’s not above giving you a bite in the back if you’re not paying attention. Should I beat the crap out of him fot it?
No, but you SHOULD make him *think* you will – the “30 seconds of DEATH” rule applies here.
I’m inclined to keep him happy. If that involves standing on his hind legs playing, so be it, he doesn’t do it in the paddock on race day.
That’s NOT playing, and I still say “UNACCEPTABLE” if I’m about. Are you going to offer a bottle of Red of White with him at the auction?
After a few “Come to Jesus”meetings with my little snotbag, most of the time, he would great me at his stall, ears forward. On his ‘Fugly’ days, not only would he be the only boy in the barn who didn’t get a bite of carrot with his hay, he’d get an ugly face right back! I’d come back a little later and see Mr Hang Dog with his head down low, as if to say “sorry friend, see what a pathetic soul I am?” Only THEN would would the carrot magicly appear – Funny enough, those fugly days were VERY few.
He bites me once, I correct him.
He does it twice, I get more than a little cross.
He does it three times he is gelded.
Lady, women are fine handling stallions.
You, on the other hand, have NO business having one!
Honestly, some people make you wonder, they really do!
It sounds like you are confusing being female with your inability to manage your horse’s ground manners. Your inability to train your horse to act like a Gentlemen in hand has nothing to do with your gender.
I don’t care if you horse is a Thoroughbred stallion, you let him get away with this bad behavior so he has no reason to respect you on the ground. Yes TBs are nuttier then most horses, but that only means you need to step up to the plate.
You don’t need to be a man to be physically strong. You also can use the tools that we as humans have created to leverage power over a horse. It’s called a crop. It’s called a shank or chain.
Give me a break.
Well said, although I disagree that TBs are “nuttier” than other horses. My first horse was an OTTB and she was the sweetest, most sensible little thing. They’re just sensitive animals, and if their handler is tactless, emotional, or just plain stupid, a TB reads that and responds to it, maybe a little more than other breeds.
If you don’t want to handle stallions, then fair enough…but accept that it is not because of your gender.
I can definitely understand not wanting to deal with a big, powerful horse that might have something on his mind other than listening to you.
And really. I don’t like TBs, but even I wouldn’t say they were all ‘rank’. They tend to be *hot*, but that’s a completely different thing. I’ve also found that the ex racing TBs I’ve handled and dealt with have tended to remember they’re racehorses at rather inconvenient times…but that’s not a breed factor. I’m betting an ex racing Arabian or QH would have the same issue.
(Wow. Me sticking up for TBs. Who’dathunkit)
Love your line–
“I’m sure there are some (post menopausel) women who could do it….”
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
I don’t work with stallions (my husband thinks he’s one….) though I’m menopausel and this rings true : )
LOL….only spayed or postmenopausal women considered for this stallion handling position.
Remind me never to send you any kind of horse to handle or train.
NO, stallions do not automatically become runaway locomotives in the breeding shed — not unless human idiots have screwed them up.
If this were true, how would the colts ever be trainable, usable, raceable on the track, where they are around fillies and mares *constantly*, running next to them, BEATEN by them, stalled next to them?
You know very little about horses. I gather you are *proud* of your rank gelding, who is either in pain for some reason or has just been spoiled for his entire life. That says a great deal about you. You are, however, wise to disqualify yourself from the breeding shed, where stallions must be handled with *brains*, not brawn, because a single mature stallion can easily out-muscle more muscular men than will FIT in the covering shed! But of course, you haven’t handled stallions, so you are talking from sheer ignorance.
Not many people can get me wound up like this, but the whole idea that a breeding stallion is — and *should be* — a dangerous animal is such a crock of second-hand food!
Good point. Plus, I don’t know about the TB industry, but our Arabs stallions are expected to breed during show season. So i’t a matter of “Ok, time to collect”, “OK, now it’s time to ride,or stand on the trainer with 11 mares, or behave in a class”. It is really NOT that difficult or complicated to train a horse.
Yeah and Free House was just playfully rearing up during bath time when he flipped and fractured his skull. It’s a dangerous habit for the horse and any person around him. He can be perfectly happy without it. You ignoring it is a disservice to the horse and makes you sound like a pushover. Its not like he is going to say, that B&*ch didn’t let me rear, I’m not going to run well anymore.
Your racetrack TBs aren’t rank because that’s just the way they are. If so there wouldn’t be so many that go on to have successful careers in disciplines that don’t allow crap like that. They are rank because they get relatively little outlet for their energy in comparison to their fitness level (no or limited turnout) and people like you allow them to get away with it.
BT, I think you’re spot on. Remember, I grew up in polo, which has over 90% OTTB’s and NONE of them act like fools. (You cannot hit a ball off a psycho – trust me!) I have seen newcomers to the polo field bug out their eyes at the sight of someone ponying four horses at once, and they are even more shocked to learn those horses docilely loping along like that are Thoroughbreds.
I also think a lot of people think you can’t get excellent behavior without beating them or something. Do you know how rarely I ever have to go that far? Almost never. You have to pay attention and be on top of their behavior. They know when I growl at them that they’d better knock off whatever it is they think they’re doing. If you pay attention, you almost never have to physically discipline because it simply does not go that far.
(I sound like a parent, but I suspect there’s not much difference)
Ah Fugly…If controlling your kids was only as easy as controlling horses….What a wonderful, wonderful life it would be.
Hahaha, I was going to say the only difference is that the horses pick up on discipline about a zillion times faster than kids… and they can’t talk back, either.
You need to do a blog on ponying/working multiple horses at once. I’d love to be able to do that with my mares.
Some of these comments are ridiculous. I’ve had geldings all my life and never, never had an incident where my cycle had any effect on the horse whatsoever. If you can quote me some sort of peer-reviewed scientific article that demonstrates that cross species hormonal effects exist, I’ll be willing to listen to you. Otherwise, I call this idea that stallions can sense your time of the month total bullshit.
Or let’s hear from female vets that work repro – any, *any* truth to this whatsoever?
And let’s apply a little bit of critical thinking to the rest of the topic as well. Man or woman, if a 1200 pound animal decides they are going to hurt you, the extra 50 pounds a man has over a woman means nothing. The horse is going to beat the sh*t out of you either way. I’ll give a little credence to the idea that more men are willing to make stallions respect them than women so a man may have some advantage that way, but physical strength really doesn’t mean too much otherwise. Let’s be honest – we control horses mostly through psychological means. If you don’t know how to do that, man or woman, you are not going to be successful handling any horse, regardless of gender.
I’ve never worked on the track, don’t want to, but it’s not hard for me to believe that it’s a bastion of backwards thinking. But some of these other comments are just too out there for me to let go by without some sort of reality check.
Proof, scientific proof, not anecdotes.
HAHA, Really? Well I used to work at a large, very well known dressage barn around here (that has since moved). The owners where a mother daughter combo that had been in bizz forever. The daughter didnt care who did what as long as it got done but the mother…..Well she didnt want men handling the horses, cleaning stalls or water buckets, sweeping the aisles, cleaning tack, or setting up feed. She used to tell me the only use she had for men in the barn is heavy lifting and driving the tractor. And the only reason they had to drive the tractor was because it shook so hard she feared the womens bra straps would break! She was probobly in her 70′s and was so funny to be around that you couldnt help but laugh at her hysterics. The two men that worked there would just smile and laugh at her, it made her so mad. She used to tell yell all the time that men are too rough for dressage horses nerves and too dumb to manage setting up thier feed or cleaning water buckets properly.
Other than that I have never heard of any kind of sexual discrimination.
Yeah, personally, I think the very idea that a stallion would sense when a woman was menstruating and act differently is flat-out ludicrous. I’ve NEVER heard of such a thing and I’ve had many jobs where I handled stallions on a daily basis. Really, where do people come up with this silly shit?
I also question the idea that TB stallions are just, by nature, rank. Why? Does no one put manners on them young? It makes no sense to me that if AQHA and Arabian and a host of other breeds have, like, a zillion stallions that behave properly and lead quietly and don’t whinny or scream, that there’s something in particular about Thoroughbreds where they’re just nasty as hell and you can’t change that. I mean, how many AQHA stallions are half or more TB? And they don’t act like that. So, explain. It’s got to be handling, feeding, lack of turnout – SOMETHING – that creates monsters.
It comes down to the fool who thinks we can’t discipline them because you will take his vigor away. I have heard this excuse so much it made my head hurt.. I have had two TB stallions of my own and both were so quiet people mistook them for geldings. All my stallions are that quiet, my Welsh Cob stallion especially and my Mountain pony stallion, both impeccable manners.
Here’s my theory:
From what I know…and if I’m embarrassingly wrong, could somebody please correct my impressions…Thoroughbred stallions live in paddocks on their own, possibly brought in at night. They leave that stall or paddock for three reasons: To see the vet, to see the farrier, to breed.
Of course, the Jockey Club only allows live cover, so these stallions often cover three or four mares a day for the entire breeding season. The top ones are then shipped to the southern hemisphere to do the entire thing again.
What does not get done with these stallions? They don’t work. They are not ridden…even if they are perfectly sound…they’re considered unsafe to ride. They’re not lunged. When somebody puts a bridle on them and leads them out of their stall or paddock, oh boy do they know what’s coming.
If that’s really how they’re kept and treated, then how do you expect them to behave?
Whilst the average Quarter Horse stallion gets his work bridle put on him and his saddle and is damn well expected to work and do his job. Even if there’s a mare in heat in the arena near him.
I think that the average racing stallion would benefit from some a job other than having sex.
As I mentioned yesterday, I keep my yearling filly on a TB rehab facility that also houses several stallions, a few of them TBs. One stallion in particular is what some may consider “rank” but he’s not truly mean, nor is he aggressive. He’s just very easily distracted, and he absolutely requires a confident and experienced handler, because if you lose his attention, he can be quite a handful. Another of the TB stallions we have there is quieter than most geldings and mares I know. We had him in the paddock next to two mares for a good portion of the year last year, and while they would stand at the fence mooning at him when they were in heat, he ignored them completely. He never even so much as uttered a nicker at them. He ground ties for grooming, he is extremely safe to handle, and he is just an absolute doll. The only difference is that stallion 1 went to the racetrack, and stallion 2 was broke to race, but they decided he’d never be fast enough to race and never entered him, and while they definitely have some personality differences, neither stallion is truly “rank” in my opinion (not that I’m an expert). Why stallion 2 was even kept a stallion, I’ll never know. He’s never bred a thing.
I’m sure what it comes down to, like with almost everything else, is how they are handled and what is expected of them, as was mentioned above.
By the way, I forgot to mention, many of the breeding farms do jog or breeze their stallions. I know Three Chimneys does. It’s usually done early morning.
And I bet you see a major difference in manners between TB stallions that are worked regularly and ones that aren’t, either because they are not sound after a racing injury or because they belong to idiots who don’t think they can be worked. I KNOW those people are out there…it’s good to hear they’re not as common as I thought.
Erm, a menstruating woman does NOT equate to a mare in season.
A woman ovulates halfway (roughly) through her cycle.
Not that this has anything to do with Stallions, but my brother was a diver at a public aquarium. There wer several very capable female divers too, but when they were menstrating, it was never a good idea for the women to dive in the shark tank. The many sharks and barricuda KNEW what was up and got a bit too close for comfort. It was a dirty cycle, because once you got nervouse, they could smell that too!
However, I’ve worked around loads of breeding and non breeding stallions. Our horses know when we know what we do or do not know, ya know? And so thats what I have to say about that. bah.
I can imagine that blood in a shark tank would be a bad thing!
Honestly it wouldn’t surprise me if horses can smell when a woman’s on her cycle, it’s not exactly odor free. But why would they care? It’s not anything similar to heat.
That’s how I feel. We’re completely different species, and there’s no way a stallion would even consider a human female a viable a mate. I’m not buying it.
And yes, blood in a shark tank would definitely be an issue.
Agreed–I dobut they think it’s the same as a mare being in heat, but I’m sure they’re aware that women are menstruating and/or going through more extreme noticable biochemical fluctuation than men that does change the pheromones they produce. Other animals do, why wouldn’t horses? I don’t know that it would affect a horse’s behavior the way it would a shark or a tiger (it’s also not a great idea to get too close to exotic predator species while menstruating, either.) It might make an especially sensitive one more twitchy, but most horses probably aren’t going to pay that much attention.
Where I do think you make generalities is that yeah, I WOULD be inclined to, all other things being equal, hire a young male stud groom over a young female stud groom for minor strength differences (not because they’re going to outmuscle the horse, just because it’s hard physical labor) and because if their ability to not be ‘soft touches’ is not established, I’m going to lean male over female. But then I tend to do that in most situations since AS A GENERAL RULE women tend to be more emotive and touchy-feely and I hate that and think it’s detrimental to working with animals, who don’t like second-guessers and uncertainty. HOWEVER, “most women” are not looking for jobs as stud grooms. If hypothetical female hire has a resume that shows she can do the job and isnt’ some twit wandering over from the hunter ring who just thinks racehorses are so cool and has never been closer than the TV screen to a racetrack or TB breeding barn, then if she’s handled breeding stock before or handled working racehorses before, there’s no reason not to hire her simply because she’s got XX chromasomes. Women CAN have the ‘dominant’ personality needed to work with pushy horses (most of the nasty ones I know are mares, though I did know one Arab stallion with a very pushy atittude), it just goes against how women are culturally expected to behave and how a lot of them do. (Heck, look at the majority of people who fall for Parelli’s crap.) But the ones who show up looking for a job at a stud farm are probably better acquainted with what they’d be doing. So would I hire Sally from the IHSA team who’s never set foot on a TB breeding farm but just loves horses and was in Pony Club and wants to do just anything with them because Thoroughbreds are so great? No. Would I hire Betty, who’s been galloping and walking hots since high school? I’d certainly give her a second look.
Heck, it isn’t “hormones” the sharks/etc. are aware of — it’s *blood*. Has nothing to do with the cycle. I’m sure none of the divers went in with any kind of open wound, either!
I had my Kentucky Thoroughbred Trainers license in the early ’80′s with one of their highest test scores. I was never treated badly on the backside or elsewhere unless I needed it. However,I was extremely upset with “Good Old Boy,” practices toward the horses, just to patch them up to keep running………very upsetting, very ingrained attitudes and practices that will never go away. I didn’t last long in that profession. However, what continues to amaze me is the fact that AQHA show competitors are primarily women, yet YOU WILL NEVER NEVER SEE WOMEN IN EXECUTIVE POSITIONS DOWN IN AMARILLO!! Those old boys have a stranglehold on that dying breed association
AQHA is a DYING breed association? It is the most popular in the United States – as well as the largest and the Quarter Horse is gaining hold in other places around the world. HARDLY what one would consider to be dying.
I worked at the track since the early 70′s clear till 2001, I will tell you that the Mexican work isn’t just piss poorly paid Mexicans. Give me a break. I worked with a lot of those Mexicans. They are sexist, I could understand a lot of Spanish and believe me it wasn’t pretty what they said about women on the track. I do not care to employ Mexican grooms , my choice. I find they are not as vigilant and caring as my African American grooms or my Caucasian grooms. I prefer to hire these people by far . As for not finding people who aren’t Mexican to do the job, BULLSHIT! Mexican grooms take way less pay, I know because I see it all they time. I know how hard it is to pinch a living at the track so yeah, a lot of trainers go to the Mexicans because of that. I won’t compromise . I also have been a stallion handler , although not at any of the multi million dollar facilities in Kentucky, but yes , there is sexism there as well. The old wives tale of stallions smelling menstruating women and getting out of control with the woman handler. I haven’t had an issue with that but then maybe someone has. There is sexism at the track everywhere, I just grew a thicker skin I guess . I ponied , exercised horses & I was a trainer and owner groom. I also have worked around a polo field , my husband still works on polo ponies . I see a bit less sexism there but it still is there. It is not a job for everyone, it is hard work and it has no holidays.
Some of my kindest stallions were the Thoroughbred stallions believe it or not. My rankest were Arabians . I guess it depends on the bloodlines and who handled them first. Just my own opinion.
For the record, most stallions at the top end farms are worth millions. How the farms chose to manage their million dollar babies is their business. Who has time to worry about someone getting hurt, seems a stud can read when his handler is the authority and a woman just wouldn’t have that edge like a man would. Just my thoughts.
(1) A stallion can read his handler — darn right.
(2) A woman cannot have the “edge” a man would — ABSOLUTELY WRONG.
It has NOTHING ZERO ZILCH to do with gender. If anything, it has to do with the problem of testosterone — when a male is scared, he gets mad — his hormones are made that way. The one thing you do NOT want in the breeding shed is an angry stallion handler.
I repeat — stallions often behave BETTER for women in the breeding shed. I’ve known several stallions who had been so messed with by men who were afraid of them and so tried to “dominate” them that they wouldn’t even go INTO the shed if a man was on the lead — they either became violent or flat refused. Yet they would behave like gentlemen for a woman handler who simply insisted on polite behavior, but didn’t start an argument about who had the biggest one.
The stallion manager at Three Chimneys is a woman, and they have many other female workers. (My home backs up Three Chimneys, and I see them every day.)
No, I do not think the TB industry is stuck in the 1950′s — far from it.
I worked in the TB industry in KY 20 years ago, and I work in it now, and it has gotten unbelievably better with regard to females. I’d say it’s getting close to equal. It’s still a male-dominant industry, as many industries are. Women are moving up here as much as anywhere. Tons of TB vets are female (look at Hagyard!). Women are making their marks as trainers, owners, etc. Women get hired on farms all the time. Also, look at Darley Flying Start and KEMI — KEMI is mostly women.
Yes, harassment happens at the track and sometimes at the barns, sales, etc., but how a woman handles it will dictate if it keeps happening. This sounds bad, but stereotypes exist for a reason, and I think a lot of it has to do with the type of guy who has those jobs. If you are an intelligent, strong, confident woman, you’ll end it immediately and earn their respect pretty quickly.
Most PEOPLE have no business handling stallions.
Too many men suffer from testosterone poisoning and get into pissing matches they cannot win without extreme disciplinary measures.
Too many women have been indoctrinated with Natural Horsemanshit flowers ‘n’ sunshine and don’t discipline at ALL.
That being said, there ARE perfectly competent men and women out there who can handle just about any rank SOB horse. Why would an excited TB stallion be any worse than say an excited QH or heck, draft horse?
I dunno, there’s still enough crazy redneck/Old Boy Club stuff going on in the South and Lower Midwest that I wouldn’t be surprised if this were true.
(BREEDING stallions I meant. I’ve met many very sweet stallions – Arab, QH, TB, Morgan – I just don’t think I have the knowledge or temperment to handle one in the breeding shed, where stallions AND mares get all wacky.)
They don’t get wacky unless human beans MAKE them wacky. Breeding is a natural act, and while handbreeding is pretty unnatural, it can be a calm and powerful event if the humans allow it be so.
Most of the problems I’ve encountered in the breeding shed are from the mares, not the stallions! That includes the ones I’ve started on mares and the ones that came to me as mature and experienced breeding horses.
I had never heard the whole menstruation thing… I have worked and ridden geldings and a few stallion and the only issue I ever had was riding through the cramps
.
And as to discrimination for women when I have been looking for jobs I have been told that they wont hire me because Im married and a woman. Why? Because I might get pregnant (even though my tubes are tied AND im on birth control lol) Or the other reason is that I have children and they dont want me getting hurt.
Someone tried telling me you cant ride rough horses after children because having children messes up your uterus and makes you more prone to injury so they wouldnt hire me.
I think the reaction from men in the breeding shed is one of ‘size matters’. When I worked in Ocala, the stallion grooms were very embarrassed when we brought a mare in. Maybe they figured we would compare them UNfavorably with the stallions…does ‘hung like a horse’ ring a bell. Either that or the fact that a stallion only lasts 30 seconds tops. I never felt discriminated against, and the crew I was on could/would be just as crude as the guys.
I have worked at several farms where the idea that a stallion could sense one’s ‘time of the month’ was accepted as the truth. I think it comes down to stallions not being taught respect. One farm owner like to lead the stallion out to the breeding pen on his hind legs. Imagine what that did to the mares.
I think a little “discrimination” is due to the instinct (if I can call it that) and training that females are delicate, lovely things to be protected from hard labor and from being exposed to, um, earthy things like sex. I’ve met one or two men like this who also believed in women’s brains, so I don’t consider it sexism per se. (They’d be quick to punish anyone who groped, too.) One of them was my coonhunting mentor; once he understood that I loved it enough to disregard “unladylike” things like mud and sweat, he was all for it.
At the Saddlebred barn, my boss didn’t involve me with breeding, but I’m sure it was from embarrassment.
Yes, I’ve run into sexism and bigotry of all kinds. But I’ve also run into a few women that were scared of their own horses, even after riding them for years. And, of course, the kind of women that reinforce all the bad stereotypes.
As for rank thoroughbreds – I remember an article about Secretariat having to be taught to breed, after he retired from the track. Seems that, when they are colts, very rude things are done to their, uh, equipment, if they dare to drop around the racetrack. I might be rank, too, if the same guys who were whipping my privates into obscurity suddenly wanted me to show them and use them.
Stallions are just horses with balls. I deplore the idea that stallions can either work OR breed. They’re smart enough to learn when it’s appropriate to breed, and when it’s not.
What a bunch of bollocks!
Ruthie
Years ago (back in the mid- to late 70′s) I worked at the home farm of a TB training stable. They wanted me to go to the track, but I didn’t like the track hours. I wasn’t treated unfairly as not as being equal. In fact, I was usually given the best horses in my stalls because I took care of them better than the men did. I also did all the leg wraps and bandaging — I did a better job at it and was more careful — and the farm manager knew that. I handled a lot of stallions, both young ones and mature ones — never a problem other than the occasional brat behavior. We had over 100 horses on the property, I handled every one of them, as did every other groom. I’m sure a lot depends on the trainer and his attitude.
Just wanted to add my experience with “that time of the month” and horses. Mostly, it’s really not that big of a deal. I know women who have said they were attacked by a stallion when it was “that time” but what about when a stallion attacks someone who is not on their period; I think it’s more of a coincidence than anything else and yes, even the most mild mannered stallion can have a bad day and turn on you.
My late in life crabby, bullheaded gelding (he was a stallion until he was 10) tends to get a lot more affectionate (normally he is not at all) and responsive to me when I am ovulating. And I used to ride a mare that was more prone to spooking when I was on my period (someone else pointed it out to me, I didn’t notice at first so it was not because I set myself up for it). That’s my experience with hormones, and I do believe that ALL animals (even dogs) pick up on those things. Whether or not they react probably depends on the individual.
I have been told that donkeys / mules will attack a woman when she is on her period – but I have never been around one when I have been on mine so I couldn’t tell you.
I used to work at an arabian racehorse breeding barn under one of the once best (he was retired and training at the farm) thoroughbred jockeys in the United States. He used to tell me all the time that gender DOES play a huge part in the racing world and that is why you will rarely see a woman jockey. A lot of the trainers and grooms are very old school and sexist and if your not sleeping with them than they won’t take you seriously. Now I can’t tell you if it is true or not but this is what he would tell me (and not to get me to sleep with him; he used to bust my ass with chores saying “if you want to equal pay you better do equal work” so I got no slack from him on dirty or hard jobs because I was a girl). My cousin who used to show big in APHA and worked as a groom for a lot of BNT’s said that yes, gender does play a large role in the amount of respect you get and as a women a lot of the older men will except you to “sleep your way to the top” or will before they take you seriously. I have also been told by a lot of women that even if your husband is not “horsey” male trainers / grooms / buyers will address him over you and treat you like the silly little homemaker who doesn’t know what she is talking about – WITNESSED THIS FIRST HAND!
I usually am more prone to the – your a dumb kid (because I am in my twenties) what do YOU know? But when I was working more heavily with horses at the arabian breeding farm I was surprised by the number of grooms, trainers and shoers who expected me to have sex with them.
The my gelding being more affectionate / responsive when I am ovulating is actually what I use to gauge where I am at in my cycle – he is never wrong and sometimes he catches on when I am all out of wack.
Also, I think Dixie being spooky had more to do with the smell of blood than hormones. I love her to death but she was kinda a goof ball about a LOT of things.
“I have been told that donkeys / mules will attack a woman when she is on her period – but I have never been around one when I have been on mine so I couldn’t tell you.”
Another myth. Period. You know, these aren’t “old wives” tales, they are “silly male” tales.
HA HA I’ve seen a lot of mares that would sooner kick a stallion in the face than get bred by him. Hence breeding hobbles etc. so that valuable horses don’t get hurt. My QH mare didn’t like stallions except sometimes when she was in heat. On trail rides, people on stallions learned to steer clear or she’d put her cleat in his lip!
As for the whole “menstruation” thing, I think that what really MIGHT happen would be that a handler having a rough period just might possibly be feeling a little yukky that day and not at the top of her game, and a pushy stud would take advantage. Actually, that’d make me get all up in his grill and go apeshit at that time of the month.
My husband gets a little green around he gills when he hears “girl talk,” which can be quite …. graphic about men.
He’s always like “Me and my friends don’t talk like that about YOU!!!”
“Men get squirmy in the breeding shed if women are present…”
I suppose it would be hard to impressive a lady on a date if you knew she worked in the breeding shed all day. It would be like comparing a sapling to a might oak. ( hehehehee )
This thread is starting to read like something from the Weas….
I know it…it is funny though!
When I was 18-19 I worked at Churchill Downs. I worked for several different barns, one for several months when I first arrived, then we had an argument and I went and worked for several other barns but returned to the first barn (and got a raise). I also worked for 2 different barns off the track – one a breeding farm and one that was starting colts in the fall and had an indoor training barn. I tried riding colts a few times, but after a few falls I decided to stick with being a groom – this may have been part of why I didn’t encounter sexism – I wasn’t trying to “do anything” to get trainers to give me rides. Instead, I had a lot more horse experience than many of the other grooms (even if I’d only been on the track a short while) and was generally well respected, especially given my age. When I went back to that first barn the trainer put me in charge of the operations of the barn – I was responsible for mixing up the grain and medications for 24 horses, ordering grain and hay and bedding, ordering stable supplies from the tack store, getting tack repaired, etc. I was the first one up and at the barn each morning – pulling buckets and giving out the morning scoop of grain. I had all this responsibility (and respect) at 19, with less than 1 year’s experience on the track!
I personally never encountered any sexism, was never pressured to sleep with any of my bosses/trainers. I think that many (not necessarily all, but many) of the women who encounter these problems have self-esteem or self-image problems – they don’t have self confidence and the creeps see that and prey on them. This problem is not limited to “the track” – it happens at riding and show barns as well. It happens anywhere that girls/women “will do anything” to have a dream job, which is why the old “casting couch” was so prevalent in the movie industry.
I’ve also spent quite a bit of time working at TB training/breeding farms in northern California, as well as time on the track (although not as an employee) in northern California – at Bay Meadows (RIP) and Golden Gate Fields. From my time in these 2 different locations I can also say that the way things are “on the track” varies TREMENDOUSLY depending on where you are in the world. In Kentucky (years ago), most of the low-paid workers were african-american (we all said “black” back then, many even openly used the unpleasant n-word – I was quite shocked when I first heard it used on the track as I’d never actually *known* anyone who used that word before) who grew up in the areas near the track and often they had never never touched a horse prior to coming to find work at the track. In Northern California, most of the low-paid workers are hispanic and most have at least some experience handling horses before anyone on the track will give them any work. The culture of how people were treated (racism, etc.) was quite different between these two locations. I’m sure that how things are “on the track” will be different on the track in New York, in the UK, in Japan, etc. The world IS a very big place.
An interesting point regarding stallion handling:
There are those who think they are experienced stallion handlers because they can hang on while the stallion runs in circles around them, rears, and acts up. They do not do a single thing to correct the horse or change his behavior. They generally come armed with a chain lead and, sometimes, an aluminum baseball bat.
The other point of view, which I share, is that being an out-of-control knothead is never acceptable for any horse. If you are at the end of my lead rope, I expect you to lead at my shoulder and not pull, drag, dance, rear, crowd me or otherwise.
My experience is that the presence of testicles does not prevent a horse from learning normal, polite ground manners – even if he did not come with them already installed and this is later in his life. As with any horse, behavior/attention span tends to improve when you aren’t over-doing it on the grain and the horse is getting plenty of turnout time.
Honestly, I’ve had more issues with ‘Uppity Mares’ than I’ve ever had with the occasional stallion I’ve worked with. I don’t care what kind of reproductive organs they have, a pair of testicles doesn’t give the leeway to behave badly.
Failing to instill basic manners in ANY horse is an incredible disservice to the animal and any handler who comes after.
*laughs* snap!
fhotd, yes yes YES I wish more people understood this! I never really understood why there was a double standard for behavior for stallions vice ‘everyone else’. The first hoss I ever handled, when I was 14, was a Standardbred racer (my uncle’s horse). I never had a problem with him and didn’t even know I was supposed to. Later when I worked at the stable I mentioned in another post, the stallion that was my responsibility had some behavioral issues – but not for long. And you know, it didn’t really take much; I didn’t really know that much then and I still had that boy under control and much, much safer without too much trouble. A stallion is a horse. Sure, if he’s not trained correctly he’s thinking with the wrong end of his anatomy, but that can be fixed.
it has absolutely everything to do with 1) the trainers 2) the grooms and 3) the hot-walkers.
You are 100% right. I feel it has everything to do with expectations. Grooms/trainers etc. often have this belief that “Stallions will be stallions” and thereby excuse the behaviour. But I did see, handle, walk and groom studs that were so well behaved that 99% of the barn population thought they were geldings. it CAN happen even with racing stallions.
3 words – short man syndrome (jockeys)
No track experience here. However, if I were employed anywhere in the equine industry, and a superior- male or female – assigned “dirty” or “hard” or “dangerous” work exclusively to the males I would interpret that as harrassment. The duties of the job are “X, Y, Z” if you cannot perform these duties, you cannot hold the job (unions notwithstanding,lol). I damn sure wouldn’t want to be the one to have to ask, “and are YOU on your period today?” TMI!!!
Conversely, the thing about having a female distract from the crooked legged horse doesn’t offend me. More like “creative marketing”
This is only semi-related, but I hope someone has an answer for me…
Can horses tell the difference between a male human and a female human?
Definitely. I’ve seen numerous cases in both horses and dogs where they’ve been abused by one sex and are more responsive to the other – usually the abusers are male.
I shall say this again as it may be lost in the threads.
People, if you think a menstruating woman is ovulating it might account for all the unwanted pregnancies!!!
A menstruating woman has NOTHING to do with ovulation .
A woman ovulates halfway (roughly) through her cycle.
And anyway, believe me, horses are not able to make the “species jump” stallions prefer women because a lot of stallions do actually have a brain, and realise that these creatures take better care of them than men, not because they know they are female.
I have never, ever, had a stallion try to mount me, or show any sort of sexual interest in me whatsoever, because that, to me, is the most basic of disrespects, and would not be tolerated for a moment.
A woman can ovulate at any time during her cycle – it depends on the woman. That’s part of knowing your own body. According to a lot of medical journals women ovulate 7 to 11 days after her last period, I ovulate a week before mine starts. Some women ovulate DURING their period – which accounts for the “oh knows, we thought we were safe because she was bleeding and we didn’t use protection” babies. Still, the majority of women – don’t ovulate on their period.
Someone asked above about a study showing horses reacting to human pheromones… There are literally thousands of studies of cross-species chemical reactions for everything from stress, fear, and sexual anxiety. Fortunately for us, MOST horses are well trained enough to not react to these signals, and we will never notice it. However, the fact remains that they are there. Did you know that an elephant and a species of moth share the same female sex pheromone? So if you had a few thousand of those moths in breeding season, you could drive a bull elephant up the wall.
Perhaps a big part of it is the intensity of the scent, and the stud’s ability to detect the slight difference between the female horse’s pheromone and the female human’s. Yes, animals do react to these bodily secretions. And it’s not just sex hormones, so let’s not let this get into the gutter here. I’m talking about everything from adrenaline and endorphines to drug overdoses and the chemical reactions in the brain from an oncoming stroke or diabetic coma. Ask anyone with a good service dog.
Just wanted to clear that up
. That doesn’t mean that most stallions will REACT to these chemicals, but some may. I do notice a stark contrast when working with stud colts or broody mares in heat when I’m about 1 week before my cycle ends, and usually it’s not a big deal because I’m always boss mare 
but those are days that I would rather work with a gelding than a stud 
.
Yep! Totally have had this experience. I got hired on as a groom at Turf Paradise in Phoenix by a well known trainer. I told him that I had had lots of experience handling warmblood stallions in florida as a working student and was very good with handling colts and stallions. He said, “oh yeh?”
My first task was to bring in a 2 year old colt that was out on the hotwalker. The trainer handed me a lead rope and “bring him in!”
So, I marched right on out there and clipped the lead rope to his halter and unsnapped the hotwalker……. and within the first stride.. BAM! That colt bolted instantly and drug me 40 feet before overpowering me, with little to no control with just a lead rope he of course got loose and left me face down in the mud. The staff was laughing hysterically, having all gathered round. Someone caught the little beast and put a chain over his nose and the trainer came up to me and said “I thought you could handle stallions!” Of course the colt knew and respected a chain and was a sweetheart leading back to his stall for the male groom that caught him.
I wasn’t allowed to handle the stallions after that, even though to this day I am sure that it was done deliberately to make me look like a fool, as no one handled that colt without a chain.
It’s OK, I quit working for him 3 days later and found another trainer I respected more (one that didn’t feed his horses moldy hay). There’s good-ol-boys everywhere, no matter where you go. And lots of people just don’t respect women period. I still believe you do have to show your worth with horses no matter where you go.
Hindsight is 20/20, but you should have asked if he needed a chain to be led.
Yep, they definitely played a trick on you didn’t they! My first task on my first day . . . take the temperatures of all the two-year-olds fresh from the farm. It was definitely a test!
My question is WHY did that colt need a chain to be handled. I realize that most people believe stallions MUST be led with a chain or a bit, but I wonder how necessary it really is…
It may have been because your a girl, it may also have been because you said you could handle stallions and because you came from the show world. Most likely it was a combination. A lot of the racetrack has this idea that people who come from the show world are just silly little girls playing my little pony that don’t actually know shit. In their defense, for every good groom/rider we get that comes from the show world, there are 10 that come through from the show world that DO meet that description.
Also, many people who apply for jobs that lie about having any experience with horses, claim to have a lot of experience with show horses or barrel racing or whatever, which also isn’t helping their rep around the track. I had to work with one girl that said she was on the rodeo circuit for 12 years. She showed up for work in flip flops and shorts, had no idea how to put a bridle on and but the saddle on not only in the middle of the back instead of behind the withers, but BACKWARDS. I’m no rodeo pro, but I was not inclined to believe her when she said that’s how to tack a rodeo horse, and I was in horse racing so I had no idea about rodeo’s. She was sorta right, I don’t really know squat about rodeo events other than “hold the fuck on”, but I’m not a total idiot. The funny part is it was our pony horse that we had her tack, WITH WESTERN TACK!!!
The point is, that show people are automatically considered by some trackers (usually the older ones) to be silly little girls playing my little pony until they prove otherwise. My advice if you are trying to get a job on the track? Ask around and talk to people that are obviously grooms about the best places to work before actually asking a trainer for a job. RACETRACKERS LOVE TO GOSSIP, and will usually gladly do so with anyone! When you do ask for a job, don’t brag up your experience to much. Tell them you have some experience, elaborate a LITTLE. An easy way to gain respect around that place is to be modest and be amazingly good with horses, don’t brag it up and then suck. Even if you are all you brag about, then your just an asshole instead of a liar LOL.
Please note: do not rip my face off. I DO NOT think show people are silly little girls playing my little pony, I’m simply saying there are people that do. Most of the good ones stay in their industry instead of coming to the track, and we see a lot of the culls the show people don’t want working for them LOL. We have many good horsewomen/men that come from other industries. There’s idiots playing my little pony at the race track too (such as that dumb broad that tried to race that 12yr old broodmare that was featured here)
hard to say that they did it to you because you’re female. could have just been “breaking in” the new person.
Wow, I was certainly aware of this sort of problem, but never imagined it was this bad. I don’t have any racetrack experience but even at my lesson barn, you’ll hear comments like “Oh, you can’t haul [whatever], let [his name] do it for you”.
On another note, it looks like that horse’s noseband and flash attachment are on way too tight! No wonder he doesn’t look happy.
One thing I found missing, but have heard about with the TB racing industry .. is superstition.
That jockey’s, owners, and trainers are very superstitious.
Perhaps,(unwarrented of course) the folks at Claiborne farm are superstitious.
If a woman is present, they won’t get a colt. I mean weirder things have been done…
Lucky underwear.. goggles… You just never know.
It is sexist, and unless proven by a well known trainer or handler who takes a farm to court to win a case.
It all ends in speculation. And as they say, there is a timeless quality to TB racing, and the barns around a track..
Perhaps those folks need to get into the 21st century.
This story was told to me about 5 years ago by a Parelli professional (for the life of me, I can’t remember her name) when she was doing a workshop in Riga. It’s kind of irrelevant because it took place in Turkey and well, women rights still have a long way to go in Turkey in all fields of life. I thought I could still share it here just because it was a really amazing story and it kind of fits with the general theme of the post.
The trainer had been called to help retrain a big black very talented tb racing stallion. The problem with the horse was that the stallion panicked and tried to cast himself every time he was put into the starting gate. If he could get out of the gate uninjured, he would win, if he managed to harm himself, he would lose.
After trying pretty much everything the owner of the horse decided to get outside help. When the outside help arrived in the shape of a skinny blond woman with a cowboy hat, everyone was shocked. This was a world where horses were handled exclusively by men and some even believed that it was bad luck to let a woman touch a horse. At first the racing trainer, the jokey and the grooms didn’t even want to let the woman near the horse, much less let her work with him. But the owner was desperate enough to make them eventually hand the lead rope over.
The story is of course significantly longer, because the problem wasn’t fixed overnight – there was a number of setbacks and many hurdles to overcome. But the important part is that though the horse was eventually successfully retrained and went on to have a brilliant racing career, the people that were involved might have in fact learned more from the experience then the horse did. Not only did they have to trust a foreigner with a totally different idea of how a horse should be treated, but they had to put their livelihood in the hands of a woman, something that was almost unimaginable in their culture.
And now we could add in the time when the jokey was almost killed because of a miscalculation (the horse was already fine with the gate, but flipped out when he saw a “help horse” in costume, because he associating it with a real race), we sprinkle on a little bit of romance between, oh I don’t know, the trainer and the jokey for example (that didn’t actually happen though, lol) and we add the ending: the trainer went back home and left the team with a few month long action plan that was to be finished with a very important race, but the team couldn’t finish the plan in time because of a flood and actually didn’t enter their horse into the race because they missed a week in the program. That’s how much they came to believe in her methods. And we get a story worthy to be a Hollywood blockbuster
Except, of course, in a Hollywood film the trainer would catch a plane (only just managing to make it across town because a handsome stranger gave her a lift to the airport when her car broke down) and caught the last available seat on a plane flying back to the track where the stallion was being trained. With only three days to get the horse up to speed she rushes straight to his stall where he throws up his noble head, breaks loose of the boy holding him and rushes to push his nose into her. As the music swells in the background she turns to her team, now united in admiration for her and says “Right, let’s get to work, we have a race to win”
A number of short cuts of film are then shown as they run him, wash him down and jokingly dowse one another with water, she remaining dry until the colt comes up behind her and pushes her in the trough, whereupon they all laugh. Cut to the racecourse where the colt is throwing his head fractiously as he approaches the gate. Cut to heroine saying “come on Big Boy you can do it”
Horse bursts in slow motion from the gate, his fears all behind him, his future as a racehorse and a stud ahead of him. Trainer hugs all the team, kisses and champagne all round.
Amid tears and grateful humble thanks she flies home. At the airport not welcome her with a big bunch of flowers is the neighbour who gave her a lift to the airport. Music swells as they embrace.
The End!!!
I’ve never worked in the Thoroughbred industry, but in the early 1980s I worked as a Standardbred stable hand and racing groom. There was certainly no discrimination at the stable, I worked just as hard or harder than the other groom who was a guy. I handled stallions on a daily basis, some of them were quite poorly mannered when I started. I don’t remember any discrimination at the tracks either – often we were at county fairs and such, but we raced at Saratoga Springs a time or two as well.
Never occurred to me either there might be discrimination in the horse industry. Only place I’ve seen it is out west – most of the cowboys I knew were terrible chauvinists, and I did face a lot of discrimination at a “dude ranch” I worked at out there, but my impression was it was more because I was an “easterner” than I was a girl.
WOW WEIRD! Just today I was at the barn and I mentioned something to the (woman) barn owner about how when I first moved to NY (20 years ago) I thought about applying for a job at Belmont. She replied, “the track is no place for a girl. I worked at Saratoga and it was hell. You would have been abused and harassed”
The barn I’m at is a reining barn mostly, but I was commenting on a thoroughbred ex-racer they have that was being ridden, that’s how the track came up.
Long time lurker here. Normally I’m content to just let some of the silliness slide, however the stallion handling discussion has me thinking about smacking my head into my desk! I’m not a veterinarian, but I am a graduate student specializing in equine reproduction. Our program allows women to handle stallions daily, in fact our program is comprised mostly of women. I would completely agree that there are some people who just aren’t cut out to handle stallions, but it is either by their personal choice or proven by inappropriate actions. However, handling stallions is more about psychology than physical strength. You shouldn’t even be getting into a wrestling match with a horse, no man or woman is going to win against roughly 1000 lbs. It’s about quick, precise correction that scales appropriately with the behavior. That being said, stallions should be allowed to act like a polite stallion in the breeding shed. They should be allowed to tease, vocalize, and puff-up, with in reason. They should NOT be dragging the handler, teasing/biting any humans, or kicking anyone (that includes other horses), while in the breeding shed or on the way to and from the shed. As for stallions responding to a “woman’s time of the month,” see the previous posts explaining difference between human cycles and most other mammals. While they might be able to smell the blood, no stallion should be out of control because a human woman is in the fertile portion of her cycle (obviously not while she’s menstruating), nor should they being crazy because of a blood smell (they’re not sharks for heavens sake!). Plus, studies done at CSU (which is one of the top equine breeding research facilities in the world) has shown that the smell of in-heat mare urine alone is not enough to stimulate a stallion. Stallions, like any other animal, may show a preference for handlers, or even begin to associate a certain person with breeding, but a gender preference would likely be the result of (poor) training or habituation.
I’m going to stop there, and get off my soap box, before I end up segueing into stallion handling failures that don’t pertain to the current topic…. though that might be a good one to revive, fugs.
fhotd…I’m not sure if you done a feature on this group or not but I wanted to pass along a good comment about them. I adopted “Little Big Red” through the trainer listings on LOPE last year. I was researching “my baby’s daddy” (“Shadow Caster”) and found out he was at “Old Friends Equine” http://www.oldfriendsequine.org/ & http://oldfriendsblog.wordpress.com/.
They were kind enough to take a couple of pictures of him and e-mail them to me.
p.s. They even let women handle the stallions:-)
Old Friends is wonderful! They have one of the horses that played Seabiscuit. And they are super nice people.
off topic — Blue Hors Matine had to be euthed today. She broke her leg in her paddock. Sad end for a talented mare.
Very sad news. Here’s her 2006 Freestyle with Andreas helgstrand for anyone interested: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKQgTiqhPbw
Regarding Fugly’s Blog:
I worked at a prominant dressage breeding barn for several years. I handled their 17 H Warmblood stallions for teasing, collecting, turnout, & everything in between. These were not easy studs to handle either. They were testosterone-filled beasts because they were only allowed an hour turnout & they were collected more often than exercised! The myth about stallions/women menstrating is a MYTH. I never ever had problems handling them as long as I had a stud chain & they knew how was boss! In fact the farriers & vets prefered that I handled them over any other man that worked there.
But I will also say, my boss never hired male riders to train or ride. Female riders are far better dressage riders because we have a more flexible seat that reacts better to the moment of the horse.
Hey this is Random but I came across this and thought it’d be something to bring up.
They are auctioning off breedings to a HYPP N/H stallion for charity now
http://www.gallopauction.com/desc.ydev?prod_id=8457
I came across this stallion after seeing this add http://seattle.craigslist.org/sno/grd/1570159991.html that was for a show quality filly and had no mention of her HYPP status (when her Great-Grandsire is Impressive) and so I looked up her sire, The Power To Impress and found the above website.
Years ago my sister worked on a racing farm, exercising the horses. The barn took in young horses to be broken to ride, train them for the track, and also rehabbed horses. (Massachusetts)
From what I recall, it was only women who worked there. And a woman owned the farm.
But this was a private training facility – it wasn’t the track itself. So I have no idea. I do remember a few stories about male trainers or owners who visited the barn (to pick up/drop off their horses, stuff like that I think) and usually the stories focused on how they acted like total jackasses to all the females and also to the horses.
I have somewhat experienced the same, but reversed, with my son. He is constantly discriminated against. He is now 16 yrs old and been riding for about 6 yrs now. He’s had a very sexist coach (altho she wasnt bad, but not good for him) it was highly obvious she preferred female riders. Nobody would hire him as a working student or any job and was flat out told it was because he was male and it would cause a ‘problem’ with the female staff. He was hired once, but because he was male they worked him like a pig.
Also shopping for a boy for equestrian items is next to impossible! He wears womans breeches due to next to no mens selection…and tall boots for mens cost an arm and leg! i have to buy those off ebay to get him reasonable priced ones.
Fugs,
You are correct on these points. In my experience the behavior of TB stallions that we consider bad or rank in most cases is caused by lack of correction and the typical way these horses are raised and handled. Good ground manners are often not a priority at the track, and biting, kicking, threatening, airs above the ground, striking, etc are tolerated or at least don’t frequently elicit much of response. This coupled with the fact that these horses aren’t very socialized with other horses leads to problems. They can be very different from stallions that are consistently made to behave within acceptable bounds from the get-go, and normal socialization helps too. It is much more difficult to retrain them after these behaviors are established (in many cases it can be done or at least some improvement can be made).
While I really believe all horses should behave for any handler, the truth is they don’t. Sometimes when retraining one it helps to have someone strong handle them. I can tell you that when you have a 17h horse plunging like a wild thing (even with a chain) and you weigh 110 lbs, you are not going to hold them if they are too crazy, and once they get away once or twice, they know they can)! The trick is to pick your battles and enlist help to convince them they are not out-muscling anyone (if you are lucky they give in to just an increase in strength). I have been lucky in that that has worked for me, and once you get past the idea they can escape, they begin to pay attention without any real heavy handed stuff. I am sure there are some out there that would be intractable, though.
” I can tell you that when you have a 17h horse plunging like a wild thing (even with a chain) and you weigh 110 lbs, you are not going to hold them if they are too crazy”
Ah, but then, neither is a 6’6″ 250 lb MAN going to be able to hold them. Not going to happen. No human can defeat a mature horse using muscle alone.
Remember, the human is supposed to be SMARTER than the horse.
You have to have a strategy to handle an idiot monster.
I weigh 90lbs soaking wet and stand 5ft only with the aid of a box. When I turned up to educate a 17hand warmblood filly about the possibility of her entering a horse box without a fight, the grooms in the facility she was at actually lined the fence to watch me fail.
I am a horse whisperer, what I mainly whisper is “You do as I bloody well tell you or I shall turn you into sausages, I swear I shall!”
Mostly, I find, they tend to listen.
We went down the end of the yard, I had a word with her and we came back and she walked onto the box.
Within half an hour I had her running up and down the ramp for her owner, stopping coming down when she was told to stop, and walking in with the rope draped over her neck.
Sometimes you only have to say the right things, and see the problem form the horses point of view.
If you never get in a position where you are arguing with 1000 lbs of horse, the problem of who is stronger never arises.
If I think the horse is going to put up a real fight I am quite happy to tie the lead rope to a wall and stand in front of it, they might think they can pull me, but pulling a brick wall is a trifle more difficult.
And a chain over the top of the nose, just to start with, gets the attention quicker than anything else, I have found.
I do this to earn extra cash these days, and I have not failed to get a horse on a trailer or box yet.
If it is true I’m not surprised. Many TB stallion farms won’t hire women, and its not necessarily being sexist. You have to remember that disposition is NOT even looked at when deciding if a horse is breeding quality (*cough* bold ruckus *cough* storm cat *cough*). Infact many people believe the worse the disposition, the better the horse runs, so when disposition is looked at, the worse the better. These aren’t the stallions that get their nuts choped for bad behavior. Stallions of such dispositions are more prone to being bigger assholes when near a woman that is on “that time of the month” don’t know why, but they are. As we all know, men prefer to not to even think about that stuff and will thus just hire men for that job instead of worrying about a womans cycle. I worked for one farm that was really good about that. I was primarily the stallion handler, but I knew two of the stallions were highly sensitive and turned into assholes when they smelt that kind of blood. I’d simply ask someone else to do it, and there was no argument or questions, they just did it. Similarly, there wasn’t much argument about anything else when I had someone else handling the stallions LOL. Some people are just downright sexist though.
I find there to be very little discrimination for grooms and exercise riders. If your good you get the good treatment, if your bad you probably don’t have a job, regardless of gender.
I don’t see a lot of sexism with jockey’s either, women just don’t seem to handle the abuse and the craziness that happens out there as well as men. Unfortunately, we are genetically programed to be “the meeker and gentler” sex, and its harder for women to handle people trying to put them over the rail and other very dangerous behaviors. It happens to all apprentice jockeys, they all get picked on. You get picked on less when you stop being a baby about it, and clearly demonstrate that shit doesn’t work on you. Vet jockeys routinely have to deal with the same shit, they are just used to it and have more experience handling it. There are many female’s out there that do a damn good job of keeping the boys in their place, and they make sucessful jockeys. There is a small degree of sexism, but no more than you will find in any other workplace.
More to come later, I need to go feed horses now
“Women are genetically programmed to be meeker and gentler”
You are a moron. But that’s just coming from me, ya know a, “meek” and “with vagina” Woman. Heavens-to-betsy, sometimes I am so gentle I can not even dress myself, I’m too afraid I might rough-up a button. I know that my genetically pre-disposed meekness often means I’m too scared to order food at the drive-through. I just can’t muster up the testosterone to shout my order into the speaker. Frankly, I’m surprised the law even allows me to drive a car. I mean what if I have a :gasp: period while I’m behind a wheel. I might freak out and run some people over! Cause golly-gosh, that’s the only time I’m not meek and gentle, when I’m PMSing.
“Stallions of such dispositions are more prone to being bigger assholes when near a woman that is on “that time of the month†don’t know why, but they are. ”
Hogwash. Sounds like something in the woman’s attitude is setting the horse off. If said woman let that stallion know that the behavior wasn’t acceptable despite the time of month, it would stop happening. I have no doubt the change in a woman’s scent is obvious to the horse, but the idea that it affects their behavior is just HOGWASH.
Wow, show. That is not what I said at all. I’m glad you put us all back a few steps by furthering the stereotype that women are unreasonable bitches though. I’m not saying we can’t handle the things jocks go through, Im saying we’re predisposed to not being as ballzy as men. Lots of women make great jockeys, and many are better at it than the guys. I have been very sucessful in my 10 years on the track, and I have never had any big problems with sexism. If you’re good have it good, if you font show up or beat horses you don’t. If you’re a slut, you get treated as such. 99% of the time you get treated the way you’ve earned being treated whether you’re male or female. There is no more sexism here than the average office, if not less.
As far as stallions and smells go, I’ve dealt with enough stallions to have seen enough evidence that there is some truth to this “hogwash”. The stallions you speak of have manners, the ones I speak of do not. For some reason the smell seems to pisses them off. The ones with manners seem to behave differently around women on than off. That is just based on what I’ve seen. And really, unless you actually ARE a rank stallion there is really no way to prove it either way. I don’t defend people who don’t let women handle studs, I was just explaining the reasoning. Yes handling the studs properly from the get go is a far better solution, but just keeping menstrating women away from them is the lazy far less efective way of preventing accidents.
You’re the one who’s “putting women back” by being a woman and saying things like “men are generally more ballsy”.
Have you interacted with people out in life and actually observed people’s personalities or you just generalizing based on sterotypes? I know many confident, aggressive women and men and many passive, pushover men and women. It’s all about individual personalities and doesn’t have to do with gender. Personally, I am an extremely outgoing, confident, aggressive gal and I’ve had some really passive dudes work for me. I’ve also had some more confident guys works for me too. I’ve known women who I want to shake out of their, to use your own words, “meek” little bubble, but it is a mixed bag out their or personalities. It doesn’t shake out down gender lines.
Genetic programming, no. Cultural programming…quite possibly.
OK Ladies, settle down, time out!!
I would rather handle any stallion, however rank, than try to take it on after a man has had it.
Handling a stallion is always going to be a matter for a certain amount of compromise and give and take, otherwise it stops being fun for anyone. }I have a young stallion at the moment (he’s five) who thinks it is a good idea to shove his shoulder into me as we come to the breeding pen and then he shouts and screams.
If I were a big strong man I suppose I could suppress him, yell at him, hit him….whatever.
As it is I just pull him to one side and we stand there. When he has adjusted his sights, and remembered his manners, then we proceed.
No shouting, no yelling, no hitting (although I do always carry a stick, mainly in case the mare kicks , I have to say)
If a colt gets way over the top and lugs me to the point where we are heading toward the mare anyway (and these things do happen) I push him on and we sail straight by then stand in the other corner!
I don’t use chains on breeding stallions as they can get their leg over the lunge line when mounting and can hurt themselves, for this reason I will not bit them, either.
I have two stallions, one two year old, very stroppy, colt and one yearling colt, at the moment. The senior boy is brilliant, it is a joy to work with him.
The five year old is getting there, and has the added bonus of being able to run with his mares, and foals.
The two year old will breed for the first time this year and I have no doubt will be a real “teenager”.
The yearling is still dreaming, he will wake up in the spring!!!
Stallions are great, I love them, but I would never want one that had been handled by a man who used brute strength to instill obedience (not all men do this, you know, a lot are brilliant horse people, they really are)
There is a difference between a stallion being able to recognize that you smell different because of your cycle (which I think most horses can do if they care enough to want to, which most don’t) and a stallion being aroused by it (which would be laughable if it weren’t so obnoxious that people still believe this pile of shit).
My first stallion absolutely knew when I was on my period (back before I had my hysto and stopped having them, yay!) and the first few times I had a period after I bought him he reacted quite strongly to it… in the exact way he reacted if I wore a new perfume or if I breathed on him after eating spicy food. He made funny faces, sniffed me up and down, and acted confused until he realized this was just one of my normal smells and was “No Big Deal”. He did not, however, ever get used to the fact that I would use my ex’s Old Spice deodorant when I ran out of my own. That ALWAYS freaked out his tiny pea brain. When he smelled Old Spice deodorant on me he would walk around with his lip in the air and act like I might want to bite his head off. He never reacted to me as if he were aroused by anything related to me, unless he saw his breeding halter…. and then he would start to sweet talk the halter, lol. If you have ever handled a stallion you know what I mean by “sweet talk”. It was actually kind of cute. He would talk to it even if he saw it hanging on the wall across the barn.
By the time I had my second stallion I’d been spayed (did I mention YAY?) and not only do I not menstruate but I also have NO monthly hormonal fluctuations because my ovaries have shriveled and died and I went through menopause (complete with 4 years of hot flashes) before I even turned 30. However, the little snot was aroused by EVERYTHING anyway… The neighbor’s mare, hay bales, large farm equipment, Jehovah’s Witnesses, 4×4 trucks…. If he was looking at it, he was aroused by it. By then times had changed and no way was he ever going to get to use his family jewels so I picked his pockets clean and now he only seems to notice if I have apples in my pockets. (I love geldings.)
I also took care of a gelding who would act afraid of me when I was menstruating… Like I might do something unexpected at any moment. It was the blood, pretty sure, because he reacted the same way when one of the guys cut himself badly and came back to work with his blood all over his shirt after getting stitches. It in no way aroused him, made him difficult to handle or anything else, it just made him look at you as if you had something strange and mildly scary going on that he didn’t understand. (Kind of how most human males react to a female menstruating, lol.)
I work in the racing industry right NOW. I have been in it for 3 years, I am a pony girl (and groomed for 1 year) at the tracks in AZ. First… yes, there is still men-women sexism. Men are usually preferred to women. On one hand, a good looking woman (like myself) gets a lot of extra work because old perverts hope they have a shot with the new hottie. When I first started ponying, I had so much work I didn’t know what to do with myself. That’s the only pro. I have been verbally, mentally, physically, and emotionally abused and harassed. I was raped within my first 6 months (mind you, I was 18 then…). I was nearly raped a second time 6 months later. I have been sexually assaulted several times, and learned to carry a weapon at all times – and I have used it many times on trackers. There is a lot of verbal abuse. A lot of sexual harassment. Usually I get names like ‘tits magee’, ‘blondie’, ‘sexy’, etc. but they aren’t said in a friendly way. It’s demeaning, condescending, and they get harassing. Guys make “grabby hands” at your boobs when you go by. People smack your ass.
I could go on, but I won’t. I’ve learned to stay on my horses, and I don’t get off them unless I’m at my own barn, safe with someone I trust there. That’s it. I’ve learned not to walk alone in the dark. I’ve learned to keep a weapon. I’ve learned a lot of things that I wish I never had to learn. Many of my friends have had the exact same experiences.
Women at the track go through hell.
Holy cow. I’m sorry… I’m also damn impressed by you. Don’t let the bastards get you down!
About time someone addressed this. I plan to go into the racing industry and even when I went down to Kentucky a few summers back, I told a few people I was set on it they all gave me those ‘what the hell’ looks.
I don’t understand why they would not hire women as stallion handlers–I mean, literally ever ‘rank’ stallion I have ever seen was either in the presence of a mare in heat or handled like a house pet: no proper energy outlet. More often than not, the latter. It’s not like a stallion is suddenly going to determine whether or not it takes out of a chunk of a guy or gal as long as that energy has to go into something….
Having been around tracks and bought horses off of them for decades, I think the race industry is like any other: some employers horribly sexist, some moderately, most OK with a few bad moments, a few are legitimately gender-neutral–and a few err on the side of favoring women. There’s a great deal of discrimination out there, much of which is impossible to stop thanks to “plausible deniability,” and some of which women participate in (see some posters above).
That said, the stereotypes do us all harm, even when they’re in our favor. The blanket notion that women are less inclined to fight with/punish a horse than men is no more valid than similar ones about men being better able to assert dominance over a horse than a woman. Temper, competitiveness, control of emotions, ability to remain calm, assertiveness, dominance, leadership — these vary by individual, regardless of gender, with nearly as many exceptions as “rules” on either side. Stereotyping ourselves as better because of our womanhood does not move the conversation where it should go: hiring individuals according to their experience, aptitude and ability, regardless of gender, appearance, etc.
On another note: annebux and others like her, who perpetuate the idea that thoroughbreds are “born rank” or “need” to be permitted to behave badly in order to be successful racehorses (or jumpers, or whatever) contribute to the glut of OTTBs looking for new careers, and TBs’ poor reputation in general. I’ve retrained dozens off the track, some of which were flighty and mischievous, others calm and rock solid. My 4 year old OTTB is sensitive, but also incredibly calm and forgiving, and less likely to dump me when snow falls off the roof or a dog dashes across the ring than the 15 year old QH/draft cross one of the boarders rides. TBs can and should be asked to behave like any other trained animal, and for God’s sake such handling will not diminish there competitive capabilities!
“On another note: annebux and others like her, who perpetuate the idea that thoroughbreds are “born rank†or “need†to be permitted to behave badly in order to be successful racehorses (or jumpers, or whatever) contribute to the glut of OTTBs looking for new careers, and TBs’ poor reputation in general.”
Absolutely. I can’t tell you how many Thoroughbred-haters I’ve converted after introducing them to polo ponies. They thought all TB’s were nuts and couldn’t believe mine “acted like Quarter Horses.”
I don’t hate TBs. I just prefer not to deal with the ‘race switch’ OTTBs seem to end up with in their heads a lot of the time. I’d consider a TB who had never been raced long before I would consider an OTTB. But I realize a lot of people love them…and the more power to them. It’s odd, because I like hot horses…just not that particular behavior pattern.
Thank you.
I have had several female former students work in the KY Thoroughbred industry as interns and full-time employees. The ones working for the larger, big name farms are limited to jobs on the mare side – foaling, mare facility manager, etc. In the same vein, I’ve seen the guys preferentially directed toward internships at the stallion facilities. Women that worked for the yearling prep programs worked side-by-side with the male employees at the farm, but when it came time to go to Keeneland or another sale venue, many of the farms would not allow them to show their charges to potential buyers or lead them to the ring (the “black boys” of the Keeneland sale ring are another deep-rooted tradition). Three Chimneys is a rarity in the area – I had an opportunity to get a behind the scenes tour there a few years ago with a college group. They are the only major farm to have a woman for a stallion manager, and there have been rumors of how Three Chimneys has lost potential matings because certain old-guard mare owners think a woman should have no business in the breeding shed.
Get outside KY and the Thoroughbred industry seems to relax a little, unless the farm has strong ties to the KY industry and its players.
Oh, and this whole crap about stallions and female menstruation – its one of those myths that helps to falsely perpetuate “no women in the stallion barn.” Unfortunately, as an equine education professional, I’ve dealt with students that come to class convinced its true, and no matter what facts I present, some won’t budge. At least I tried.
have no personal experience to relate but I think we need to keep in mind that the stallions at Clairbourne etc cannot be compared to VLC in one big aspect…they are not beloved pets and in most cases the owners could care less what sort of manners they have. It’s about the breeding business and if a studs a rank SOB he’s handled with that in mind but as long as he’s producing millions in stud fees his bad attitude is a non -issue.
Look up histories of stallions such as Halo, Silver Ghost & Hastings…it may be sexist but perhaps they are just trying to protect “the womenfolk”
As a female farrier I find I have a lot of people question my abilities. I often get told that I shouldn’t do hard work like that and that I wouldn’t be able to handle problem horses. Well over the years I have done many not so nice horses. I often get comments from my clients such as I love how gentle you are. Most men farriers have the ability to let’s say bully the horse into cooperating. I can’t do that, but I don’t mind spending an extra few minutes letting the horse get more comfortable. I just took on a new client a few weeks ago who was given a new horse. She had her farrier our to do him and he acted up. The farrier smacked him in the gut with his rasp. Scared the he’ll out of the pore horse who I don’t think has ever been trimmed before. She asked him to leave and called me. I took him into her round pen and although it took me over an hour to finish it was a good experience for the horse and he learned a lot. I helped the owner with stuff to do with him to help as well. She was very thankful and I know that every time I go out there he will be better. Honestly I think I do a better job in the long run then many of the male farriers in the area.
Where do you work?
I’m in BC Canada
WarPony::
What you just wrote is hilarious! Our stallions do “sweet talk” their leather halters as well when you pick them up ! LOL!
I know that it is an old adage that women and stallions don’t mix. This stems from the theory that the stallion cannot be around a woman during that time of the month or he goes crazy and starts acting stupid. Our fair used to have a policy against women handling stallions (since changed). I would think that this adage is what farm owners who employ a no women handling stallion policy are still brainwashed under.
Just food for thought.
yeah, I’ve heard that sexist claptrap too… and not just from men. My grandmother had an absolute bird when I bought my little SE SOF arabian colt and expressed that, should he turn out to be as nice as I hoped, I had no intention of gelding him. Apparently stallions are wild, crazy, vicious beasts who need a big strong man to handle them and if he ever came into range of a mare in heat I would be at his mercy.
Yeah… what… fuggin… ever. Show me anybody… man or woman… who stronger than a horse. Thankfully if we’re smart enough, the horse never learns he’s stronger than us and we never have an issue with it.
My little colt is now three… still doesn’t know he’s stronger than me… and, yup, still has his jewels.
I’ve also heard women declare that stallions do notice and react to a woman with her period. Just thinking here… but if I’m prey and I’m smelling blood, I’m probably not turned on. But then, perhaps my logic is just faulty here…
Not so sure about the racing industry, except that I know a female owner of A TB broodmare down in Kentucky who sure hasn’t been treated right by the big boys because she is a woman.
I would say that the farrier industry in some parts of the country is still stuck in 1950. Both the schools and the clientele…there are people out there who simply don’t think the best man for the job is a woman. The horses usually don’t agree with that, but they can’t sign the checks or make the phone calls.
I would rather have a tb vs. a QH any day. I don’t know why QHs have such a great reputation. The TBs I’ve been around are much more intelligent. As to studs, they make great geldings.
As to sexism, walk into a bodyshop after a accident to discuss your truck with your hubby. They look at him (whom wasn’t in the accident) and ask him questions. Hey! Excuse me! Talk to ME.
Women can’t handle stallions? BULLSHIT. If they can’t, I’ve found it’s typically because they don’t have the confidence or knowledge to do so, and that afflicts both men and women. Has nothing to do with hormones. Like other posters have said, that time of the month isn’t exactly a “come get me, boys” thing.
We have an incredible Friesian stallion at this farm, 17 hh, ripped and wicked smart. His presence alone is physically intimidating, but I can walk right up to him and scratch his neck and hug him and generally just love on him with no fear in either of us. I still have a lot to learn about handling stallions, but I’m comfortable bringing him back and forth from the paddock, grooming, saddling and hitching him up, usually by myself. He can get very curious with his mouth and loves to hold things for you (he holds his own lead rope when out walking) but it doesn’t matter to him if it’s a man or woman with him, because every person who handles him is consistent, confident and fair.
This horse also ADORES his female trainer, and they are an awesome pair. Both the male owner of the farm and the female trainer handle this stallion equally well. The stallion doesn’t get away with crap, and we’re very certain to tap into his natural desire to please, and we have no problem with him.
Stallions being attracted to women in heat is a kinkier kind of bestiality then what is in Twilight. I refuse to acknowledge this a fact or even justify this acknowledgment with any kind of technical argument against this view. This is the kind of old wive’s tale that originates in brothels. I would go so far as to say that anyone who believes in this is seriously whacked. What did they tell you when you were little and impressionable to make you believe such a preposterous thing?! My faith in society has been rocked…and is crumbling…and…oh no!…there it goes…
I’ve been around stallions since i was 10y/o, have handled stallions from that age onwards. personally I prefer stallions to geldings/mares. I just seem to click with them better. maybe thats just me.
Ive owned 2 OTTB stallions that I got from BOTO Tb’s that came from NY, they were both excellently mannered, both in there teens when i got them.
I’ve owned 3 AQHA studs that were perfect gentlemen, 1 i grew up with, learned to ride on, weighed 1550lbs (aqha), bred 6-10 mares a day during breeding season, he was taught that when he went out a certain door that he was gonna get some, but any other door and he’d better act right. my studs are trained the same was he was. the other 2 I raised/trained on my own.
I’ve NEVER had any problem with any of the stallions ive handled or been around either on my rag or when ovulating, NEVER. im 32 now..
I’m too tall to race but i have broke out and exercised a few horses for some people, Jack Murry (AQHA and TB trainer) and a DR. E.E. Muscrave (TB owner). both of them didnt care that i was female, hell, they wouldnt have cared if i had 5 eyes and 2 heads, all that mattered to them was that i could ride and had a good way with the horses.
now when i had a boarding barn in GA, I had 4 horses that some mexicans were boarding at my barn, they had OTTB’s and QH race bred horses, they would bush race them. best cared for horses ive ever seen, the groom spent most nights sleeping in my tack room so he could keep an eye on them. You should have seen the looks on their faced when they saw me preparing to breed my stud… (hispanic accent here) what are you doooinnngggg? “im gonna breed that mare”, NOOO, only men to thatttt ” um, no, here i do it…” your too little, you cant handle that stallion!!!!!, “watch me and you will see”.
oh the look of absolute shock on their faces!!! PRICELESS!!! The next day they brought their friends to watch the show, I had about 20 mexicans standing along my fence line watching me breed my mare, too funny. when i brought my stud from the front pasture you shoulda seen them scatter outta the studs way, like he was gonna kill them or something, I would have been rolling on the ground with laughter had i not been holding my stud. they were amazed at how well my studs behaved, they were terrified of them any time I brought them out of the pasture or were riding them.
Oh, that’s so sad about Blue Hors Matine. She was amazing.
A friend of mine rides at a Saddlebred barn that won’t generally hire female grooms/assistants. Like most big barns, the grooms are pretty much all Mexican men, and when they did have a young woman work for them, she accused the other grooms of sexually harassing her. Those guys had been working for them forever and were well-liked and trusted, and they were pretty sure this woman was making stuff up, but of course they still had to deal with it. I don’t know if they ended up firing anyone, but the woman doesn’t work there now and they just won’t hire women as grooms.
One of the two trainers at this barn is a woman, so obviously there’s no issues of the bosses thinking women aren’t strong or dominant enough to handle the horses. It’s a whole other issue.
“they are not beloved pets and in most cases the owners could care less what sort of manners they have. It’s about the breeding business and if a studs a rank SOB he’s handled with that in mind but as long as he’s producing millions in stud fees his bad attitude is a non -issue.”
I would disagree. A rank stallion is a danger to himself, the mares he breeds, and the facility he occupies, as well as the people who handle him (lots of millions of potential liability there). Precisely because they are so valuable it would make better business sense to train them properly. Crazy mythology sticks around in racing long past the time that good medical and biomechanical studies have debunked it, and I also think there’s some weird testosterone-induced affection among certain handlers, almost pride, for bad stallion behavior–these factors conspire to preserve some stallions’ nastiness. But the business case is for well-behaved studs.
But they do exist and are used.
Ribot is a good place to start.
So dangerous they could not transport him back to Italy!!!
And yet named top sire a number of years running,
Throw a metal bucket into his stall and you would get a piece of junk back, you could have hired him out to crush cars.!
OT a bit but one of the top Irish Draught studs was so dangerous they had to use a cattle crush to get a bridle on him, and reported, in the end, of driving him into a bull pen, where the mare was waiting, then driving him out with big sticks.
His progeny were the sweetest natured animals going, this was the only reason they did not put him down!!!
I actually saw Ribot from a safe distance. I was on an unofficial tour of Darby Dan Farm and his capacity for violence was amazing.
However.
It’s a fact that Ribot stood at stud in Italy for three years and in England for one year before he came to the US. The deal to lease him to Darby Dan Farm for five years was a record maker at the time (1959) but they made out like bandits with him because he sired so well.
Would he have become dangerous if he’d stayed in Europe? Or was there possibly some benefit to someone when he became too dangerous to ship back from the US? When it was evident that he was too dangerous to ship, what could his legal owner (Federico Tesio’s widow) do? She ended up signing a deal to extend his lease but I have to wonder if it was basically a coerced decision.
“Follow the money” is often a useful principle in figuring out events.
I have no experience with stallions of any kind, but I do have something that semi-relates.
I was taking a flight and bought a book that promised to be about horses at the airport. Imagine my surprise when it was a bodice ripping romance novel (the front cover was of a woman riding a horse think Black Beauty). I threw it away literally after I made it a quarter of the way through when the beautiful but reluctant woman was taken to see horses breeding by the handsome and rugged man she’d been forced to marry. She saw the stud cover the mare and was so overcome with lust that the handsome and rugged groom was almost able to ‘cover’ her in the tack room.
It was stupid, and I was disgusted, but more importantly the book was written by a man. I wonder how many men worry that a woman in the breeding shed will just turn her on so much she’ll turn into a quivering mess in the corner with bosoms heaving and lust in her eyes like the author did. Personally, I can think of few things that would get me further from being in the mood for love than any animal mating.
Must be a whole different kettle of fish down here in Australia! (I only thoroughly read the first 100 or so replies so sorry if this has been mentioned already!)
Most race trainers here have chicks working for them, and quite capably too.
In fact, just the other day my Auntie was talking about how her racing trainer recently employed a young bloke to work for him… And how this poor young bloke felt so akward around all these teenage girls!
I did a week’s work experience for a trainer when I was about 15 or 16…. Hated every second of it because they constantly made me feel inferior and useless… Don’t think it had so much to do with the fact that I was female, so much that I was overweight and shy, and they were already a tight knit group! S**t happens I suppose.
I’m a handler for my partner who is a farrier, and whilst we tend to avoid TBs in race work (pains in the arses they can be…) I DO get a lot of ‘are you sure you can handle that horse?’ crap, mostly from the macho men of course! Needless to say, by the time our job is done I love scooping their lower jaw off the ground. This happens in all areas with all breeds in all circles.
Sorry if I’m veering off the track here too…
I watch very closely at how different people handle horses, and there IS a big difference between the way men and women do it. Women, due to their nature, are a lot more sensitive and willing to ‘listen and learn’ from their horses, whereas men tend to adopt a ‘its my way or the highway’ approach. Both have their benefits and their negative sides of course, but perhaps this is why it’s thought that men are more capable of handling a horse at it’s peak- be it a stallion, or a fit and ready racehorse?
I guess also the ‘it needs to be done NOW!!!’ approach in the race industry means that there is less time for the real ‘communication’ between horse and handler, and therefore the men that can ‘just damned well get the job done’ are favoured. /shrug. Just throwing a few thoughts out there!
And just for the sake of conversation, there’s only ONE horse I refuse to ever handle- a stallion- because he tried to kill my gelding and I know that my attitude towards him now will just get me into trouble!
Have never had a problem with any other horse!
Discrimination is about denying access to opportunity, and it’s alive and well in horse racing. Female trainers and jockeys seldom get the same opportunities to work with quality horses as the men do. Julie Crone is the only female jockey in the Racing Hall of Fame. Would anyone know Chantal Sutherland if she hadn’t appeared on Jockeys?
In 2009, all but a few of the top 100 jockeys were men. Chantal Sutherland made $7,451,964, a great year, but it was amillion dollars less than Joe Talamo and they had the same win percentage. He had more starts but she has more experience so why didn’t she get more mounts? Top jockey Garrett Gomez made $18,571,171, well over twice what she made with 164 less starts. She was overlooked to ride Mine That Bird when Calvin Borel took the ride on Rachel Alexandra in the Preakness in spite of the fact that she rode him to his title as Two Year Old Canadian Champion. Even her nickname, “Queen of the Longshots” proves that she doesn’t get the best horses…why?
The trainer story is the same. Not a single female trainer in the Racing Hall of Fame and only a handful have won major stakes races. Once again, the good old boys club is at work. Women are fine for exercising, grooming and feeding the horses, but apparently we’re not capable of taking the responsibility to train them and steer them to victory. Is it any wonder that so many women are anti-racing?
I know this isn’t exactly racing related but it is female discriminatory related. I live in Holmes County, Ohio which is the most dense population of Amish in the US. When I first moved here, I got a job with a older fellow who ran a carriage business. I was to be a groom and hitch up the horses and do general work around the barn as well as drive the carriages and surreys when we were working. Everything was fine at first since winter was getting ready to be done with and sleigh rides would soon be overtaken by country trail rides. We had made a plan that we would try and have two carriages out at once to take tourists and travelers through a destination sort of guide. That was fine so as the owner was showing me the trail, our stops and things like that we’d stop in at some of the shops and talk to the Amish businessmen. The owner would proudly exclaim that his business was getting ready to get a bit bigger as far as service and general outreach was concerned. When all was said and done, and I had most of the trail figured out, it started getting closer to tourist season near mid-spring and thats when the owner informed me that actually, I couldn’t drive the surreys because he got bad responses from the local amish businesses we would be stopping at that it wasn’t right for a woman to drive and navigate tourists around to their shops. I of course thought it was a huge load of BS at first, but the general idea around here is that women cannot drive buggies. Which I don’t believe is 100% true everywhere you go in the Amish community. But also if you go to an auction and want to look at a horse and handle it, the Amish will not let you if you are a woman, they will handle it and walk it around themselves. Which of course I think is beyond silly, I’ve handled many stallions in my horsey-related life. But there you have it. Needless to say, I didn’t work for that guy much longer and instead found a woman-friendly APHA barn to work at.
PS. Read your February Article and it was awesome!
By any chance, do you live anywhere near the Sugarcreek auction house? That place is a horse’s worst nightmare…
Yes actually, only about 10 minutes or so away. I’ve been there, but only for a hay auction. People around here refuse to believe that there are kill buyers even here. KB’s are everywhere! But it’s a ignorant person to take their unbroke, unmannered horse to an auction and get 60 bucks for it and still think it’s going to a good home. I live about five minutes away from Mt. Hope where they have the Mid-Ohio draft sale, and there are always nice big horses there, and the majority are trained to ride and drive, but I’ve seen them go to kill buyers for 40 bucks. Its pretty ridiculous.
Sorry Cathy, really off topic but I couldn’t resist sharing this AWESOME FTANTASTIC stallion with you… http://edmonton.kijiji.ca/c-pets-livestock-for-sale-stud-of-2010-perchon-app-W0QQAdIdZ181816403
Oooo his foals have a nice STANCE! I have always wanted to BREED FOR THAT!!!
MaxMari, You just got it. I would bet anything that many of the guys who take a stallion in for breeding get turned on by the scene and can’t take a woman being present ’cause then she’d know they did.
I used to work in a video store that had an adult section, and I often had to take returned movies and put them back on the shelf for other customers to rent. I quickly realized that the room would always empty when I went in. So, of course, I tried to wait for the room to fill with men before going in.
It was so amusing to me to go in and watch them glancing at me sideways as they scooted out of the room.
I’d bet anything that this is a matter of dirty minded men with massive sexual hang ups knowing that they can’t “be cool” about a big horse weenie and assuming that us females will find animal sex as big as a turn on as they do.
Go on YouTube and serach for animals breeding. You will find vids, and you will also notices that most, if not all, are posted by males.
Ick. I have to say I’m a little amazed by the sexism apologist comments coming from the women!
Men aren’t any more qualified at handling stallions. Period. I’ve seen a freakin’ yearling drag a 300 lb man across a pasture. The difference in strength between an average man and woman is going to matter exactly zip when they’re up against an adult horse, stallion or not.
Stop defending sexism, in all it’s forms. Please.
My husband brought up a good point. He said…”There’s just too many women who wish they had dicks”, and I’m afraid I have to agree with him to some extent.
Also, whenever you try to be a part of any sub-culture that predominantly employs men and women who have low intelligence levels (let’s face it…most horse people aren’t brain surgeons, or even high school graduates, they earn minimum wage, and a lot of them are pretty stupid), you get the requisite typical behavior that comes along with it.
Cheri, I’m saying this in the kindest way possible, but what are you suggesting? That women who handle stallions wish they were men? That people who work at the track wish they were men? That anyone who has taken a job in a traditionally male field wishes they were men?
Please give a good read to the 100+ messages above, most of which describe women competently handling stallions and working at the track. And please do explain what you mean by your first paragraph.
???????
Speak for yourself, Cheri. You’ll find professional horse people who have graduate degrees — and young people working in the horse industry to help pay for grad school. That was a pretty foolish remark, although I’ll forgive your husband due to HIS hormones.
We call that “testosterone poisoning.”
Interestingly enough I never had any problems with this when I worked in the animal field. Not when I was hired by the TB guy to help gentle foals or the Arab farm where I handled all their breeding stallions at various times (and who ALL had great manners except for one who would get grumpy when they got his hormone pump out of whack) or their mares who teased during breeding (they only used phantoms here to collect, no live cover) or the riding farm where I handled the owner’s personal stallion who she personal had bred through three generations nor any of the animals hospitals I worked at.
I DID however, have problems with sexism after I left the animal field and got an office job. Hoo boy, those guys could be jerks. Cigar smoking, swearing, Good ol’ boys and most of them just a bunch of jerks. They didn’t respect you or the work you did, one of them even admitted to automatically deleting e-mails that came from certain people (women).
Reality is you will find this kind of behavior anywhere. I think that some may get away with it more in the horse industry because they can come up with reasons to keep women out that can pass as nearly legitimate (to a fool) as in women aren’t strong enough or their hormones can create problems whereas the guys I worked with in the office had no excuse and more and more these types know they are looking like jerks and can’t hide behind the same kind of excuses.
Haven’t read the other comments, but from my experiences, yes, there is an issue with women in the racing industry.
It depends on the specific trainer, racetrack, country, and all that. Women at some farms aren’t hired because they want big strong men around the stallions. I think the general attitude is that they’re either too kind and will coddle or play with them, or that they’re too weak to handle them.
And yep, lots of seedy people at the tracks, lots of sexual harassment and perverts. Some trainers only hire men, some only hire young pretty girls. Some don’t discriminate.
I don’t think there is a factual basis for this. Racing just attracts more businessy money oriented people than most other horse sports.
FYI, the stallions and women on their periods has nothing to do with the stallion getting “aroused”, in fact it’s quite the opposite, it makes them angry, not horny.
I ran into it a bit back in the early 80′s when I worked at Turf Paradise. I galloped horse in the morning to make extra money. Most of the people that worked there were fine. There were the few that were condescending, and would make the rude sexual comment. But I have to say I think sexism is alive and well in the horse world. Many of the worst offenders are women. Their attitude toward men instructors and trainers versus their view of women. The man’s word often seems to carry more weight. I have one instructor who’s husband is also a trainer and instructor. She rides and trains GP horses and gets many of her students fei. I have heard women ask her, “What does Joe (name changed) think?” He has never taken a horse GP, he is in a different discipline, and he does not have the instructing skill she has. Boggles my mind.
I worked at a large stallion station in Michigan. I never had a problem with harassment of any kind, but then again, the only handlers were me (at 20) and another gal in her early thirties. People brought high powered studs in seasonally for us to take care of the breeding, shipped semen, exercise, and care of their precious stallions. One major difference you notice in stallions is ones that are “home raised” and ones that are “industrially raised”. Generally, the home raised stallions were much more personable, friendly, and easier to handle. The industrial stallions really didn’t have any manners, and were difficult to handle to say the least. We worked with them daily, whether or not we were menstrulating, and it made no difference. I have heard stories of stallions trying to mount humans, but those horses are not discriminating gender, they’d mount a man or woman, because some have terrible manners. NOT because of some womens period.
I’ve owned stallions myself and raised them from babies. I had plenty of respect from them, it’s my two EVIL mares I sometimes have trouble handling!
*the whole women/stallion/menstrulating thing reminds me of that guy, you know, the other white meat. Tim Treadwell who was frolicking with the bears in Alaska and him and his girlfriend got mauled/eaten. It was reported that the bears attacked them because the girl was ragging. I blame ignorant people with no business being where they were. Same for some people handling stallions, some just have no business and will end up getting hurt/killed.
As for Timothy Treadwell, it’s ridiculous to say it was because his girlfriend’s menstruation that caused it.
The salmon run that year had not been as good as usual, so the bears were more hungry. He was there later in the year and reported that he was seeing bears he’d never seen before, which meant he was dealing with bears whose behaviour was unfamiliar to him. He’d deliberately set his tent up in the middle of an area where several bear trails intersected and he set it up right in the middle of the path, so the bears were losing what tiny amount of fear they may have had for him. When he was found, one of the two bears shot was older and debilitated, the other bear was a youngster and thin, probably due to not competing well with mature bears.
Let’s see… human idjit who thought he could communicate with bears, drop in the normal food supply, tent right where the bears had to pass in close proximity, bears in the vicinity that were not able to compete for food effectively… I don’t think it takes a prophet to see that Timothy Treadwell was going to be bear food whether he had a woman in the tent with him or not.
I have worked in a popular Australian racing stable… and I will say there is some truth to it. HOWEVER in our stable it was for our own safety. There was an equal amount of men and women working there, we all did the same tasks, but when it came to the colts, only the experienced men handled them… the reason was, a week before I started working there, a girl tried to handle their 3-yo colt, who was pissed off and screaming at mares, and he decided he didn’t respect her. She he kicked her and shattered her left arm. This same colt will corner you if you try and come into his stall, then turn his rump at you… and you know what’s coming. When it comes to leading, he is a nutcase. He will try so hard to look this way, go that way, that you get ropeburns leading him. So now only guys handle him, because if it comes to him being headstrong they have the physical strength to say “not happening” and get him back in line. But other than that, its all equal opportunity. I wouldn’t want to handle that psycho of a horse anyway!!!
I think that you should do a confirmation critique day, like the riding Q & A. Like you said there are alot of professional eyes on here and I honestly think that all of us like other people’s opinions on your horses.
Oops that was supposed to be our horses.
As for TB breeding farms, they sometimes have a vested interest in not teaching their stallions better manners. Am I the only Fugly reader old enough to have seen Ribot at Darby Dan Farm (from a safe distance)? He was leased to Darby Dan on a five year lease but when the lease ran out, he was so rank that there was no way he could be shipped back to Italy, so he stayed in the US. Now, I’m not saying that Darby Dan deliberately turned him into a maniac; however, it certainly worked out to their advantage and if it worked out that way once by accident, there would be a huge temptation to help it work out that way again.
When I rode as a teenager, I rode mostly OTTBs. The stable owner had a real knack for picking up injured horses at the racetrack that could be rehabbed into complete soundness and made quite a good living by picking them up for $25 over the kill buyer’s price, rehabbing them, re-training them and then selling them on as hunters or jumpers.
Most of those horses came off the track with hideous ground manners. They weren’t bad horses, they were just horses that no one had ever trained or expected good manners from. I remember one in particular, the trainer had this superstitious belief that if the horse bit someone the morning of a race, that meant he’d win. Except that horse bit lots of people on non-race days too! Well, he quit doing it when he start rehab because no one wanted to mess with the bowed tendon of a horse that bit. Not treating him was not an option, so he learned very fast not to bite.
I’m not buying that the bad manners are all due to being grained up without any turn out, either. Most of those horses came to the barn straight off the track with leg injuries that meant they had to be confined to stall rest for a period of time. They were racing fit and pretty nuts from the track. And yet, within a week or two while still on stall confinement, they all learned that they just were not allowed to barge into a human being, pull on the lead rope, threaten, bite, kick or strike. They came off the track with all the manners of poorly handled weanlings and we just didn’t allow that.
The kicker? All those horses were taught good manners by teenage girls. We certainly had never heard that there was any correlation between menstruating and these horses acting up, we just assumed that they acted up because no one had ever bothered to teach them not to.
The stable owner got a stallion off the track for free under a no-race contract. This was a horse that had deliberately gone through the rail twice. The first time with an exercise rider, where the horse broke two ribs (you could feel the plate through his skin). The second time was during a race and the jockey was killed. The owner wanted to kill the horse but the trainer talked him into giving him up for free on a no-race contract. He was actually quite well bred, out of a stakes placed mare by a Derby and Preakness winner.
After I taught him ground manners, I started riding him. The indoor arena at that stable had open supports and you had to be careful not to get too close to the wall or you’d smack your knee on them (we were just grateful to have an indoor!). Looking back, I think I was being too demanding with him too early but I was a teenager and didn’t really know any better. After about a week of riding (and yes, of course I cantered him), he got pissed and tried to scrape me off on the wall. Knocked some hair off his own shoulder and smacked my knee hard into the wall.
Well, I forgot I had a crop, I was just SO PISSED that he’d even try that on me. I used my hand to smack him around the head, I growled and carried on and generally made him think he was about to die. I had to get off so the trainer could check his shoulder and the whole time I was growling and glaring at him. He was fine, so I got back on and finished the ride.
His whole attitude was horror: “Oh. my. god. I didn’t mean to start ARMAGEDDON!!!”
After that, I had no more problems with him. He learned horse manners from being turned out with the pregnant broodmares (is there anything crankier with a pushy stallion than a pregnant broodmare?). When outside mares were brought in to be bred to him, we used the very same indoor arena we used for riding in bad weather. I didn’t know any better, so I just used his regular halter. He knew that until he was given permission, he was no allowed to act like a mindless idjit around mares, even mares in season.
At shows, he never caused any problems but there were a few incidents where mares in heat tried to get to him.
I agree that this kind of behavior happens everywhere, not just in the horse industry. I have been lucky enough to work in some occupations that were once considered male-only. Machine work, etc. Some businesses tolerate discriminatory behavior and some don’t, and I just moved on to a place where I was treated with more respect. I defitinely am glad it’s 2010 not 1950!
I agree with other posters, that a lot of the time, when you are a young woman trying to break into the industry, you are going to encounter hazing. I think men haze each other alot, too.
I noticed though, that the less I challenged their positions, more I was treated as one of the guys. It was when I would try to take the initiative, then I would start to hear more of the comments that I found offensive.
As I got older I learned to develop a thick skin.
One of the things I would hear alot is from men (but I haven’t seen here) who would say, “they didn’t like to see women get dirty,” or “they didn’t like to see women get hurt.” As an excuse for why I wasn’t allowed to do …
I’m the kind of person who would ignore that, but I really think some of the guys really *didn’t* like to me get dirty. A lot of time it is upbringing, for instance the same rules that say a man should never, ever hit a woman.
Another thing, guys would have a problem cussing in front of me. Probably also because they were brought up that way. Or they were afraid of saying something that could get them sued.
Personally, I wonder if some men unconsciously view women as, like large children, because the way they reacted is how I would react if I saw a child trying to do something dangerous. Maybe because we tend to be smaller and have higher pitched voices?
I tried to understand why some places were deliberately unwelcoming to women. It just seemed to me that these places were a woman-free haven, because these guys were unable to ignore the distractions of working around women. From some of the comments above, maybe women in the breeding shed is too big of a distraction?
(I’m not trying to make excuses, I’m just always trying to understand the reasons people do what they do.)
I used to work at one of the top racing stables here in Australia…. and yes, when I first started there, I wasn’t allowed to handle the stallions and colts, though I believe it was more because they didn’t know what kind of experience I had with handling horses, and so didn’t want to trust me with them from the word go. I have to admit, I had been out of dealing with horses for a little while before then, so I kinda appreciated it ^_^
But after a while, I was one of the few people my trainer trusted to handle the stallions, so there wasn’t really much in the way of discrimination at my workplace…. unfortunately, the reason I left was because I was being harrassed by one of the other stablehands (to the point of him almost following me home one day o_O;) and there was definitely an attitude of “work something out yourself”. Though that came more from the foreman, after the couple of complaints I made he had a very weak talk with the guy that achieved nothing, I’m wishing now I’d gone straight to the top and talked to the trainer about it all…. but oh well. I had to leave, otherwise what I would’ve “worked out” would’ve been a shovel to the guy’s head.
As for handling stallions during “that time of the month”…. bollocks. I worked an average of 6 days a week, rain, hail, shine or hormones, and never noticed a difference in the horse’s attitudes towards me, though I did get that line from a couple of guys there…. soon proved them wrong =P A horse is rank because they’re allowed to be, and the colts I looked after all soon had manners after coming into my string. I mean, one of my colts had good manners to the extent that, one time when we were standing around waiting for him to…. oh, it was to get a bandage changed or something, and the same idiot who I was having issues with walked up and yanked on his tail. He did the little ‘WTF was THAT?!’ dance, but didn’t jump on me, and didn’t double barrel the guy…. *cough*I wish he had though*cough*
There were only ever a couple of stallions I was genuinely wary of handling, and funnily enough, they were the ones being looked after by the guys who were convinced it took a “man” to handle a stallion properly. Those dirty bloody horses had no manners at all, so I was more than happy to let those guys get trampled all over, me and my colts happily walking along watching the show =P
Totally anecdotal, but…
I’ve only known a very few stallions, but among those few, the only ones that behaved like complete fools were owned & ridden by men.
I had two very good friends with whom I used to ride, (ring, trails, etc), whose stallions were just as well-mannered & friendly as any other horse. Better, in fact, than some mareish beasties I have ridden with. Aside from the enormous pink testicles on my friend’s Appy, you would never know he was full of raging testosterone.
I have a clear memory of warming up before a dressage test, a respectful distance from the ring where a big, black Irish thoroughbred was screaming his head off at the sight of my pretty, mild-mannered little chestnut mare. Once his test was over, the big, Black Irish owner (a well-known womanizer & deflowerer of little girls AND a doctor to boot) came over & tore a strip off of me. I politely told him that if his horse couldn’t behave himself in good company, perhaps it would be best to leave him at home. He still tried to hit on me at a Hunt event at a later date. Ugh.
Generalization? Maybe. But a generalization wouldn’t be a generalization if there wasn’t some general truth behind it.
I worked as a groom and assistant to a farrier at several Standardbred racing barns in Ontario and yes, the 1950′s live on! The names, the derogatory comments, the crap jobs, the crap pay! I finally got into a GREAT barn where the trainer would only hire girls, not because of the sexist reasons, but because he truly believed that women were better handling his horses because they wouldn’t rough them up to the same degree men would. However, there would be several horses, -stallions, mares and geldings!- that he wouldn’t let us handle because they really were dangerous and he didn’t want us getting hurt. And we were smart enough to let him!
I’ve been around stallions all my life. First at an Arab show barn where we, the local kids, handled the horses all the time (free labor). Later, when I got into harness racing (still own/train/drive profesionally), I worked with many stallions. I am owned by my own riding stallion today. I have met and handled far more ill mannered and rank mares and even geldings than I have stallions. I would choose a stallion over a mare for myself. Horses aren’t born bad, they are handled improperly and that makes them bad.
As for discrimination. OH HELL YEAH!!! Big tracks to the small fairgrounds to the farms. Sure, the industry like females handling their horses. “Look at our horses, they can all be handled by that sweet girl.” It looks good and sells every time. As a former leading female trainer/driver that maintains my license, I can tell you that I got horses to train because of my looks, my small size, and my honesty (crooked people like to kill horses for insurance for one instance). Just ask anyone at the track. They will tell you that I did well, not because I actually worked and knew what I was doing but because I was sleeping with all the right people (vets, drivers, owners, race stewards…). I really do know what I am doing and the proof is in the fact that I still hold track records 20 years later.
Things have not changed. I experience, see and hear the same ignorance every time I race. If a female speaks to a male EVERYONE immediately assumes that sex is involved.
My two cents.
I worked at the track (harness racing) for six and a half years (all through my teen-hood and into college). I was often praised for my horse handling ability and the only surprise I ever encountered was that a girl my size could handle a 16 and a half hand stud colt who had been on stall rest for six months and was raring to go. I did encounter a lot of sexual harassment in the paddocks at the track, with all sorts of nasty comments I won’t repeat here. Then again… I get skeevy remarks left and right regardless of whether I’m at the track or not. Men will be pigs whether it’s in the horse world or the grocery store. I met my share of douchebags on the backside, but I also met trainers, owners, and grooms who treated me with respect and got protective when other men crossed the line.
I also worked at a standardbred breeding farm for two years. I was often used to show yearlings to potential buyers, and while some of the owners hit on me, they were rarely out of line. At the sales, I was always treated nicely. The only off color comments I got were in the form of wolf whistles from the mostly-illegal staff of some of the bigger facilities. I’ve actually found that MOST barn managers and prep grooms in the standardbred world tend to be female. Men are usually owners and buyers, but women typically do the hands on work. I’ve encountered rumors of how a woman’s touch makes a nicer horse time and time again.
A young friend of mine is currently just about to enter her first year of riding as a “Stable Girl” at a yard in Newmarket.
There is no real discrimination as such, unless you count the fact that most trainers would actually rather have girls as they are (believe it or not) less likely to get blind drunk every friday night and more likely to actually turn up for work!!
It helped that my friends mother went with her to interview for the job, which consisted entirely of her walking up to the owner/trainer and saying “can I have a job please?” and him saying “Sort it put with your lecturer and it’s fine by me, come and have a cup of tea” Now she has just done an intensive nine week training course that she passed with top riding marks, but she is now in charge of three young horse that she has to exercise, groom, skip out (they employ a full time mucker out) and blanket at night. She rides each one every day, they are now her responsibility!
No sexism there, none.
The English racing industry is, I think, vastly different from the US in many ways. We have Pakistanis instead of Mexicans and believe me, being a totally racist pig for a moment, I would not let one of those men within ten feet of any of my horses, I have seen the result of Pakistanis handling animals and know, first hand, how little respect they have for animals!!
We also have illegal east europeans by the shed full, but, mostly, they are doing all the menial tasks.
If they were to try to bring their racial attitudes to women into the yard they would be looking for a new job very quickly.
There is no differentiation between colts and fillies, people are given the horses to ride that the trainer believes will suit their style of riding, that is all.
I shall ask her if it is the same in all the yards, or if she just struck lucky!