Gelding - especially doing so early on - leads to soundness in the legs?

[Calzone Lord]

This was a belief Vosburgh strongly endorsed in print....

Still accepted today - or a theory that has been debunked?

[Cannon Shell]

Absolutely correct regardless of what the fat man says.

[Calzone Lord]

If so -- all of these real cheaper bred horses who don't look promising early-on should probably be gelded as yearlings.

I'm suprised by how many horses at PID who are age 4 and 5 - and are still ungelded according to the PP's - yet have displayed no lick of ability at any time in their racing career.

[Cannon Shell]

Originally Posted by Calzone Lord

If so -- all of these real cheaper bred horses who don't look promising early-on should probably be gelded as yearlings.

I'm suprised by how many horses at PID who are age 4 and 5 - and are still ungelded according to the PP's - yet have displayed no lick of ability at any time in their racing career.

If you gelded all of them you wouldnt make too many mistakes

Of course now guys are hesitant to geld horses because geldings can't be given steroids or even testosterone. A "whole" horse is allowed to have unlimited testosterone in their systems but a gelding is limited.

[Calzone Lord]

Game On Dude, Wise Dan, and Little Mike are all six-year-old geldings.

Game On Dude is the big campaigner of the bunch.

He's the one who has Baffert drilling him and he's danced a lot of dances.

He's competed in a major Derby prep, he's competed in a 3yo Classic race. He's competed in two different Breeders Cup Classics and a Dubai World Cup. He's competed on 9 different tracks.

Little Mike and Wise Dan both travel all over as well. It would be fun to see them asked to do a little more and not be so cautiously handled.

The 5-year-old gelding, Comma To The Top, just went old-school and won a Graded Stakes race in New York off of just six days of rest.

Perhaps a lot more horses should be gelded before they race.

[Conrad]

Awesome Gem was a gelding also.

Don't you think a lot of these runners stick around because they're geldings (and can't be bred) rather than having them gelded so they will race for a long time?
i.e. - their long carrers are a result of not being able to breed them

[Danzig]

Originally Posted by Calzone Lord

Game On Dude, Wise Dan, and Little Mike are all six-year-old geldings.

Game On Dude is the big campaigner of the bunch.

He's the one who has Baffert drilling him and he's danced a lot of dances.

He's competed in a major Derby prep, he's competed in a 3yo Classic race. He's competed in two different Breeders Cup Classics and a Dubai World Cup. He's competed on 9 different tracks.

Little Mike and Wise Dan both travel all over as well. It would be fun to see them asked to do a little more and not be so cautiously handled.

The 5-year-old gelding, Comma To The Top, just went old-school and won a Graded Stakes race in New York off of just six days of rest.

Perhaps a lot more horses should be gelded before they race.

yes, they should be. but too many people think they'll have the next storm cat or ap indy. people lamented horses like kelso, forgo and john henry being gelded-but they may have never become the horses they turned out to be had they been left intact.

[Linny]

Originally Posted by Cannon Shell

If you gelded all of them you wouldnt make too many mistakes

Of course now guys are hesitant to geld horses because geldings can't be given steroids or even testosterone. A "whole" horse is allowed to have unlimited testosterone in their systems but a gelding is limited.

AG Vanderbilt once said (I paraphrase) that if he had gelded all his colts he'd have made only one mistake. The mistake would have been Native Dancer.