Mare or Gelding

I have a question for you to think about if you were to pick any horse in the world would it be a mare or gelding?

I would get a gelding because they usually have a better temperment and are easier to show. Even though I have a mare right now my next horse will probaly be a gelding.

I definitly agree, I would chose a gelding. I also have a mare but when she is in season, I wish for a gelding. I love horses, actually prefer horses with spunk, but mares don't really have "spunk" when they are in season, they are spoiled rotten snots who just don't listen. Missy (my mare) gets me really, really fustrated sometimes... http://PetoftheDay.com/talk/eek.gif

Unless you are planning on breeding your horse, I recommend that you get a gelding. But a horse is a horse of course! So it wouldn't matter to me. As long as I could ride it.

I have never owned a horse, but I volunteer at this horse shelter (kinda like a humane society for horses) and I like the geldings MUCH better then the mares...although they are all special in their own way. When the mares go into season they are usually real crabby, hard to get a halter on, and, depending on the mare, dangerous. We have some blind horses at the barn and one, named Solo, has horrible seasons! She won't calm down, she turns circles around her stall and when we turn her out to pasture, she's so charged that she will drag you...we have to take a couple steps forward and then turn her in a circle, and continue this process until we get to her pasture. And she's completely blind! I have fallen in love with a few horses there at the barn, and they all have been geldings...real sweet, beautiful geldings. I can't cut all the mares short tho, I have seen some very charming, gentle mares and not all of them get so nasty when they are in season. I guess just like in the case with women, some get terrible PMS, while others have very little sour effects of PMS. It all depends on your level of patience, I like a nice, easy, calm horse with a great attitude. Some like a more spirited, fiesty horse.

I am by no stretch of the imagination a horsewoman. In fact I can be happy and best friends with a horse until I get on it's back. The first ride out usually goes well and it's not until the second or third, at the furthest point from home, that all hell breaks loose! I have spent more money on lessons than I care to remember. I understand the psychology and behaviour principles and adore the animals. That said I can do anything with most horses until I try to ride them!
The awfulness of my riding skills have reached such a terrible pinnacle that I am under medical advice not to do it any more. Too many encounters with the ground at high speed and too many horses running over me, some having to turn around and come back for a second go at trampling me at full speed, have left me with some very iffy joints and a very sore and fragile back.
Taking into account that I don't ride any more my best friends, horse wise have, always been mares - although I was no better a rider with them!! I really envy you people who have that natural connection with them. I also promise never to subject a horse to my riding skills again.