Its not good to generalize when your observations are on a small level, but gosh, I have a herd of geldings. I have two horses that seem BOMBPROOF in temperament, not spooky of ANYTHING, ever, and both were gelded late. when talking about this recently with horse people a man said a stud in the wild is a fighter while the herd flights, and that stud hormones make a horse not so spooky and that you SHOULD geld late. I know in icelandics everyone wants to geld early because of it making them taller as they grow up. But I wonder if Nasi is not spooky cause he was gelded at age 3 and my Fox was gelded at age 8 and is not only not spooky of anything, but him and nasi both seem "calculating" more than my other geldings. When ponying nasi yesterday on his first real trail ride, the only thing he balked at was going up and down a series of little steep hills. He would pause at the top of every one and Jaspar going down wouyld make the lead tug and he would come but like he was hesitant. We laughed later realizing he has never SEEN a hill of any kind before in his life. But he was not afraid, it was almost like he was going "hmm, this is really unusual, I need to pause at the top and analyze this" while my friends older mare spooked at one of the hills that had a knob of limestone covered in moss on it.
I am a believer that when you alter physiology you can hurt gait. Like if you breed for tallness or a long neck, gait can suffer. Makes me wonder if gelding early to make an icelandic taller can make temperament different? Janice -- courage is being scared to death...and saddling up anyway--John Wayne
