GELDING
After being castrated a male or colt horse is said to have been “gelded”. There are a variety of reasons behind this seemingly rather harsh practice.
By taking a horses mind off sex it becomes more amenable, and calm. A horse becomes less temperamental due to the shift in hormonal balance, which occurs with all neutered animals, including humans.
After gelding, horses are generally regarded as being easier to train and concentrate more readily on their racing.
Even more practical for National Hunt, gelding can prevent the extreme discomfort experienced by “entire” horses when jumping over hard fences, historically made from birch.
Irish horses intended for chasing are gelded automatically at an early age.
Most chasers are in fact geldings.
For a long time, many big flat races were not open to geldings, but this has now changed with most of the classics now being opened up to them.
One obvious financial argument against gelding is that after winning a major, a colt is instantly worth millions to big stables or stud syndicates.
Whereas “The Arkle” who won the Cheltenham Gold Cup in 1964, 65, and 66, was valued at the same price the day after the races as he was the day before.
National Hunt racing would not work without geldings, who are much admired by racegoers, regardless of stud decisions made by prejudiced breeders.
GOING
Advance forecasts in newspapers and the formbook advertise the state of the ground for a race meeting.