Who made the decision to geld Mine That Bird and why? Why wasn't he left intact for possible stud fees?

This article from a Canadian newspaper explains why he was gelded and who made the decision:

http://www.torontosun.com/sports/columnists/rob_lo...

It says he was gelded before he even ran one race because he was "far more fond of the fillies than of running". His owner and trainer Dave Cotey made the decision. Cotey is the guy who bought him at an auction for $9500.

All dogs play rough. However if his play is borderline aggressive or if he is actually HURTING the other dogs due to his exuberance, then i would stop bringing him to the park immediately. Learn here https://tr.im/BNwiW

It's your job as his owner to keep him under control, and if you can't so that then you shouldn't be bringing him someplace where he could get into trouble.

How often does he get walked? As a high energy breed he should be walked twice a day for as long as he can stand it. Jogging is even better. You can't count on the park to be your only way of exercising him because he obviously is not ready for it (based on the behavior you describe.)

So start walking him every morning and evening. Enroll in an obedience class with a qualified instructor (i would find a private training facility as opposed to one at Petsmart - as good as some of those trainers can be, they're mainly for easy-to-train dogs and don't specialize in herding breeds OR dogs that may have aggression issues) and he/she will show you how to teach your dog how to come.

Because he wasn't supposed to be worth very much. He was bought as a yearling for $9500. Then he was run in a claiming race where he could have been bought for around $12,000. The vast majority of thoroughbreds will not be retired to stud, but retired to homes for a new career as a pleasure horse or a show horse. They didn't think he'd be good enough to be a stallion, so they had him gelded.

This horse was gelded as a yearling, as I suspected, because he wasn't considered to be breeding material, and because of behavior problems in his early training. These are the standard reasons why ANY horse gets gelded, not just a racehorse. His sire was a good runner, but has been at best, mediocre in the breeding shed. He also comes from a nondescript family on his mom's side. Given this, I can hardly blame his owner for deciding early on that he wasn't breeding material and shouldn't be left entire. Not all horses which go to the track are breeding material- the great majority of them never become famous, in fact, and it's better that they be gelded. We have a young TB on our farm who only narrowly avoided being euthanized as a 3 year old because he couldn't run fast enough, and he was gelded as a yearling. Sadly enough, he was ruled off the track following an accident- one which, might I add, was in NO WAY his fault, although that's what the stewards and track officials decided. Some asshole threw something at the horse's face during a race, and the animal panicked and bolted, jumping the outside rail and landing in the parking lot next to it. In the process, of course, he threw his rider, who ended up in the hospital, and did a considerable amount of damage to himself. He recovered, but when the smoke cleared and it was all over, so to speak, he'd been ruled off the track for life. Not long after that, he was sent to the humane society to be sold, and that's when his current owner, who is an equine vet, found him. He's going to have a long and happy life with her- she's training him to be an event horse. I tell this story to illustrate my point- that not all young TB's end up in the breeding shed, nor are they fit to do so. Most end up as pleasure or show horses once their racing careers are done, and yes, as ugly this sounds, a fair number of the culls from the racetracks are still being sent to slaughter in Canada and Mexico, despite efforts to prevent this from happening. The auction houses which support and allow killer buyers, such as New Holland in Pennsylvania, are still very active. I live fairly close to New Holland, so I know this is true.

Typically, it is manageability problems, but - to be blunt - those situations are given every chance to work themselves out if the racer has a "profitable" bloodline. Birdstone is a son of Grindstone and he won the Belmont Stakes, but he hasn't proven to be a top sire, so Mine That Bird may have been gelded very early in his (pre-)racing career.

Mine That Bird was gelded before he got to the races.

He was a small yearling, purchased for $9500, and on his dam's side his pedigree is relentlessly mediocre. This is his catalogue page from the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky October yearling sale where he sold: http://www.fasigtipton.com/catalogs/2007/1022/208....

It's kind of a rule of thumb when you're going through a yearling sale catalogue that if they can fit more than the produce of the first two dams on the page, you're probably not looking at a very well-bred horse. If you look At MTB's page, they could fit the first FOUR dams' produce records, catalogue-style, on the page.

So here we have a small colt, from a very ordinary female family, sired by a stallion who was a good runner but whose offspring have been small and unexciting-looking. And on top of everything, MTB was reported to be studdish in behavior.

No reason to let him keep his family jewels. So they gelded him.

And I, for one, am glad they did, because as a result we can look forward to having him race for several years, assuming he stays sound.

I can't speak of Mine That Bird specifically, but inexpensive horses (say less than 20k or so) in general are gelded when and if they become too wild and difficult for their caretakers such as grooms, trainers, exercise riders, etc to handle.

Both Richard Mandella and David Codey had trained him prior to Bennie Wooley Jr.

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