view raw text
W-H-A-T? ELIMINATE GELDINGS? j j By SALVATOR. j - Nothing funnier, I suppose to the average turfman has ever appeared in DAILY RACING FORM than the article printed in a recent issue and coming from Lexington, Ky., in which was outlined an impassioned plea from a man otherwise unknown in St. Louis, Mo., for the "elimination" of the gelding of thoroughbreds! It betrayed such an incredible naivete on the part of the author, as well as his similar ignorance of racing actualities, that its publication was justified only as a joke. Viewed in that light it was, to be sure, a good one. The castration of male thoroughbreds is a process both necessary and wise and by all means all necessary things are invariably wise. It is necessary because of the oversexed temperament of nine out of ever, ten thoroughbred entire males. This temperament is manifested in many ways, good, bad and indifferent. But the most conspicuous one is the much greater difficulty it involves in their handling, training and racing. As is well attested by experience, stallions are doubly as difficult to control as geldings. Their "maleness" in which both physical and psychical characteristics are mingled makes for unruly behavior, in and out of the stable and on and off the course; owing i to which it is necessary to handle them j each and all as separate and distinct indi- viduals, never in pairs or in the mass. j Not only is this true of them as regards . themselves it is true as regards their asso- j ciation with mares and geldings. Females j and sexless animals can be handled or herd- i ed together, if necessary, either free in pad- dock and pasture, or as confined in stables; i it being exceptional when this is impossible. ! "With entire males it is absolutely out of the question. Specifically, the "maleness" of the stallion is due to those glands known as the testes, or testicles, which secrete the seminal fluid by which he is enabled to reproduce his kind when mated with the mare. Castration the removal, by the knife, of those glands causes great and permanent changes in him, both physically and psychologically. His form at once begins to lose its predominant masculinity of outline and bulk, coming to much more nearly resemble that of the mare. His temper loses its "will to dominate" and becomes much milder and more docile. Not only that chemical tests show that his blood actually undergoes a change after castration and becomes, in some of its constituents, decidedly different from that of j the stallion. All these changes operate toward one very j important result. Not only does he consume less food and become more easily kept in top condition they promote and conserve I his physical soundness. Geldings are much more easily trained than stallions; they are on the average much more apt to remain sound and continue campaigning for a long term of years, or to stand the grueling ordeal of a large number of races in one and the same season. Another thing of great importance concerns their behavior. Geldings, horse for horse, have better manners at the post than entire males. As this is the era of short-distance racing, in which the necessity of getting off well is in most cases paramount, it is a most valuable asset. -----------------.l There are, of course, the exceptions which, as in everything else, do not conform to these rules. We have stallions which are models of kindness and behavior. We have geldings which are notorious for their mean disposition and bad manners. But they are the white blackbirds in the racing flock. They do not make up the rank and file of the thoroughbred contingent. There used to be a class of horsemen of whom a few still exist, and occasionally are heard from that held the opinion that castration affected the gameness as well as the weight-carrying capacity of race horses; and, when it came to a hard contest between a stallion and a gelding the stallion was bound to win because of his alleged superior courage and strength. This view prevailed particularly in England, where it had many supporters at one time. Genuine racing experience here in America, as well as in Australia, the two countries where castration is most widely practiced, shows that this idea has not, literally, a leg to stand on; that it is wholly and absolutely erroneous. One has only to recall such American geldings as Exterminator, the greatest long-distance racer as well as the greatest weight carrier of modern times; Sarazen, the gelding that defeated a wonderful field of entire males in the Latonia International, considered by many critics the best race ever run by three-year-olds in this country; Mike Hall, winner of over 00,000 and holder of the American record for two miles and a quarter; Roamer the marvelous little sexless performer that not only was the first horse in this country to run a mile below 1:35, but that could go two miles or more under crushing weights, and, to go farther back, such heroes as Parole, Monitor, Raceland, Banquet, Freeland and Checkmate, to realize that the contention is vapid. In the Antipodes such sexless titans as Phar Lap, Gloaming, Limerick, Amounis, Amon Ra, The Hawk, Sasanof, etc., have demonstrated the most magnificent prowess. Nor does castration in any way affect the speed of a thoroughbred. The names of such record-holding sprinters as Roseben, Iron Mask, Clang, Osmand, Naturalist, Indian Runner, Sation and a host of others upset that contention with finality. As a matter of fact, many more thoroughbred colts should be gelded than is the case. Only a small fraction of those foaled every season can ever have any use or value for breeding purposes, for experience shows that of those which are so used a large proportion do not make a success as sires. Had they been gelded at the outset, with little doubt they would have done more for theii-country. It is a well known fact, moreover, that many entire males tried and found wanting as turf tools have, by the use of the knife, been converted into profitable pieces of property often highly so. Some very famous geldings have also been unsexed because of their bad temper when entire. These are only a few of the reasons why the practice of castration, instead of being eliminated, as our impractical advocate would have it, deserves instead to be still more widely followed than is the case. Common sense tells us that more geldings and fewer stallions would be better both for racing itself and the breed of horses as well.
