QuestionHi--
My knowledge of horse racing is limited to watching the Triple Crown races, but a question occurred to me.
One of the horses in this years Kentucky Derby is a gelding.
I thought that the stud value of a top horse was even greater than the purses he won. So why in the world would anyone geld a horse good enough to be in the Derby?
Many thanks,
Steve
[email protected]
Answer--Steve
There are many different factors that might cause someone to geld a horse, even if he is very well bred. One reason would be if he had a medical problem that made gelding a necessity. Sometimes one or both testicles will be retained inside the horse's body, rather than descending outside, as a normal horse does. This condition can sometimes be very painful, and occassionally produces a fatal colic. In these types of cases, gelding is the only option.
Another possible reason would be if the horse in question is simply too studdish to concentrate on running at all. Some horses simply don't care about anything other than breeding any available filly, or fighting any available male. They put none of their energy into running, and consequently do very poorly at the races. While there are some stallion prospects who are so impeccably bred that they don't need to race well, if at all, most colts have to prove themselves at the races in order to be considered as stud prospects. So if a horse of this type refuses to run, often the decision is made to geld him, since at least the owner might be able to make some money with a gelding at the races, whereas he won't make a dime with a colt who won't run, and doesn't have enough pedigree to make a stallion without a good race record. Sure, if it turns out that they are a great racehorse, the owner might wish that he hadn't gelded, but on the other hand, if the horse hadn't been gelded, he'd never have gotten to be a great racehorse, so what do you do? At least you get the purse money from winning races, if you opt to geld.
There is also simply the problem of keeping colts as opposed to keeping geldings and fillies. Colts are more labor intensive, as far as turn out, keeping stalled next to other horses, and things of that nature. Many farms routinely geld all colts, unless they have a truly outstanding pedigree, just because it makes the daily training routine so much easier.
I don't know the reason behind the gelding of Funnycide in particular, but keeping him intact probably wasn't all that important to his owners when he was just a young racing prospect. Funnycide is nicely bred, but there really isn't anything about his pedigree that would ever suggest him to be a great stallion prospect, or a future Derby winner, for that matter. That isn't to say that he might not have turned out to be a hugely successful stallion, but his pedigree isn't good enough on paper to make anyone consider him as a breeding prospect until after he had proved himself by winning the Kentucky Derby.
I hope this helped,
Stephanie Frost
www.alchemybloodstock.com
