tough horses

[Intrinsic Worth]

Foolish Pleasure pasture bred mares when he moved out west. I guess he could have mellowed out from living outside.

[summerhorse]

Sportin' Life apparently killed a rider at the track (maybe his trainer?) They made it sound like he did it from being dangerous but didn't give details so maybe he was just being a horse and bucked him off? Didn't stop him from going to stud.

Gate Dancer was a nutcase, not sure if he was "mean" but he was definitely a mental case with a lot of quirks. I think he sire (Sovereign Dancer was it??) was also very tough.

[Intrinsic Worth]

Priolo has that same nutcase attitude and he's by Sovereign Dancer. I never trusted him and always thought that he might attack someone someday.

[summerhorse]

Here's a link to the current newsletter for Daufuskie Pirate's farm:

http://www.brandywinestables.com/news5-1.htm

[summerhorse]

And here is a link to Pirate:
http://www.brandywinestables.com/bwtb1.htm

[Shannon Inkster]

Here's a question:
How do they handle these mean stallions during breeding? How do they keep control of the situation?
Shannon

[Roguelet]

Well, I don't know if that information about the attack was what was reported by the TB Times or not, but I do know that it is quite "hyped up" from the real version... not that it was any less tragic. Also, the info. in the links are old... Daufuskie Pirate is no longer breeding mares.

[roving boy]

Sportin' Life was being galloped by his trainer Del Carroll at Keeneland; came back to the barn a "loose horse". No one saw the incident but it was surmised that Carroll's head hit the rail as he came off. Carroll was not wearing a helmet and his death caused the mandatory helmet rule to be instituted at Keeneland.

[Deartoall81]

*Nasrullah may not have been as much mean as he was strong willed.
After he arrived in America, he was checked over by this vet (I can't remember his name, but he published a memoir some years ago), and the horse seemed to like him - until he gave "Nasrullah a shot. From then on, the horse about went ballistic if he heard this guy's voice.

*Nasrullah also liked to take his time in the breeding shed. On one occasiona, A.B. Sr was visiting, and when he thought the horse was "dawdling", whacked *Nasrullah with a broom! After that, *Nasrullah would stop what he was doing, and just STARE at Hancock whenever he came to the breeding shed.

[Deartoall81]

Sportin' Life apparently killed a rider at the track (maybe his trainer?) They made it sound like he did it from being dangerous but didn't give details so maybe he was just being a horse and bucked him off? Didn't stop him from going to stud.

What I heard was his trainer rode him one morning for his workout on a foggy day, and the horse came back to the barn alone. No one knows exactly what happened.

Something similar happened to a classmate when I was a freshman in high school. She took a new horse out for a ride in the country - and it came back to the farm riderless. Her body was found in a ditch nearby, and speculation was rife as to what happened to her.

[Deartoall81]

And here is a link to Pirate:
http://www.brandywinestables.com/bwtb1.htm

My gosh, only 15.3 hands? And he jumped a 6 foot fence to fight off another stallion! How big is Aly T. ?

[summerhorse]

15.3 horses can jump 6' fences. Although most jumpers today are WBs that is as much by style as it is by talent. There used to be many more smaller horses in the jumpers, in fact on another forum someone posted a list of world record jumps and a lot of the horses were in the 15-16 hand range and there were even some connemara crosses.

I will look for the ALy T article, I may still have it but it could be any number of places. I don't know who wrote it but they obviously interviewed someone there. how does your versions differ and where did you hear it?

I don't know anything about Pirate except what is listed online or on their webpage. Either they haven't updated it in years or his stallion retirement is recent because he's still on there.

[summerhorse]

I don't recall how big Aly T was. he's long gone now.

[Roguelet]

I heard the story directly from the lady who it happened to. She's a friend of mine. I've also been to the farm... as a matter of fact, I was there several days before the incident happened... we had a mare who had been bred to Aly T and we went to pick her up. She didn't take, and when we called to set up a re-breed 15 days later, this had happened and Aly T was already dead. We bred to Daufuskie Pirate instead, and the result of that mating was Shesasassiedancer, who several of you have followed on the Stable Mail forum. The fences out there were just normal farm fences, not 6 feet high. The version that was told to me does not involve the stallion swinging her around his head or anyone trying to beat him to get him off of her. I believe the newsletter that the link went to was dated 2000 or 2001?? I'm going off of memory here, so I could be mistaken on that, but it is definitely old. The other stallion on that site, Colonel Bradley, is here at our place and will stand here this season. My scroll button only goes so far and I can't get to the original message while I'm writing this to address specifics, but I touched on what I remember from the story that was posted on here earlier. I know that sometimes stories get hyped up for publications, so it's possible that there was some "stretching" to the story that was written, but I don't recall that story and don't have a copy of it, so I can't really comment on that.

[ZiaLand]

It seems this thread has migrated from "tough horses" to "insane horses".

I know of one (and I won't mention his name on this forum because as far as I know he's still very active) that stood at a major Ocala stud farm who seems to be an absolute monster. When I visited last spring, one of the handlers pointed him out and told me who he was. I was very interested in this stallion based on his page in the stallion roster, but we weren't invited to get within 200 yards of the paddock. The hands there told us he had attacked and injured a groom and they had moved him to his own paddock with his own completely separate barn, and they were doing whatever it took to "keep him happy". I heard other horror stories about him from associates (who had been much closer to him than 200 yards) and their accounts of this animal's behavior sounded nothing short of terrifying. Talent or no, I would never consider breeding to such a beast. When I checked the stallion's stats...I was pretty amazed at the size of his book. I noticed recently that he was not listed on the farm's 2006 roster (unless I missed it) so I'm not sure if he was moved, or why. I know temperament is not a consideration for many breeders, but it is definitely one of my main considerations.

On the flip side, I have a daughter of Southern Halo, who I understand was very aggressive and was usually handled in a muzzle. I made sure that her temperament checked out before I added her to my broodmare band. 99% of the time she's a complete sweetheart and tends to be more of a clown than anything, so I do realize that a particular stallion's temperament doesn't always translate to his offspring, but in Africa's case I could see exactly what I was getting. It wasn't a matter of breeding a mare to her sire and hoping the resulting foal's temperament would be manageable.

I personally don't believe "tough" and "difficult" go hand-in-hand or that "difficult" and "talented" do. I don't think many would disagree that Afleet Alex is "tough" but I don't think anyone would describe him as "difficult". I wonder how many champions-that-could-have-been just plain defeated themselves or got injured due to their aggressive antics?

Just my take on things.

Laurie