Horse Racing Forum - USA Thoroughbred Races

If any of you have the misfortune of working with a Bolt D'Oro baby be careful. Bolt D'oro almost killed his racing groom at spendthrift. Broke both legs and tried to smother him. Also when he gets very mean they chute breed him. I dunno why anyone would keep a thing like that in the breeding pool but hey

It's all about money in the end.

I think the general consensus is that this is not his inherent temperament. Something happened surrounding his trip to Australia for Southern Hemisphere duty following his first season at stud in the US. People have said he was not like that before. There were a couple of articles in racing publications about his situation during his second US season:
https://www.paulickreport.com/news/bloo ... aggression
https://www.racingpost.com/bloodstock/b ... ure/425525
Spendthrift brought in his groom from the track with the hope that the horse would respond better to him.

This has happened with other stallions. Johar is another who totally changed after shuttling one season. Tale of the Cat used to savage himself. He used to wear a neck cradle and have a special climate controlled stall at Ashford. Since he stopped shuttling, they haven't taken those measures with him. Perhaps he has also mellowed with age.

I'm sure there's a lot more to all these stories, but I'm not entirely convinced this is a heritable trait for Bolt's offspring. And if they can run, people will put up with a lot. Malibu Moon was a very nasty stallion, but his offspring don't really have the reputation of being difficult.

I mean they put up with Halo, Dynaformer, Seeking The Gold, Ribot, etc. who WERE dangerous horses who would attack people given a chance. That Bolt d'Oro hasn't had another incident to me means the horse was stressed out. They moved him to his own barn and changed the environment around him to help him calm down.

Its not just stallions who are dangerous either. A member here, Summer Bird, got viciously attacked by a mare last year and ended up in the ICU. Any horse can be dangerous.

Flanders wrote: ↑Wed Jan 26, 2022 1:57 am I mean they put up with Halo, Dynaformer, Seeking The Gold, Ribot, etc. who WERE dangerous horses who would attack people given a chance.

don't forget Hastings, who was also pretty mean. he only gave us Man o' War via Fair Play so pft, we could have weeded him out without issue. and Seattle Slew could be mean, the breed wouldn't be much different without A P Indy. so mad that "those things" were allowed in the gene pool.
wait til we move on from mean to headcases, and we can discuss if Tapit really should be bred...

We could also argue a lot about whether stallions should shuttle. I think that it's probably hard on them overall, but they're individuals. More Than Ready is on one end of the spectrum, doing it successfully for so many years, without missing a beat. A stallion flipping his lid, like Bolt d'Oro, is the other end of the spectrum. Most are probably somewhere in the middle. They can handle it for a while, but have to stop as they get older, their fertility drops and it becomes too physically taxing. Some become too valuable to shuttle. Some find a better niche in the country where they shuttled, ala Artie Schiller. Some don't do well enough to justify continuing.

I would prefer it wasn't done. However, I know there are bills to be paid. And it seems like Spendthrift acted responsibly with Bolt, sought the best help, made accommodations to improve the situation and didn't shuttle him again. It's not like you could have predicted how he would react.

mariasmon wrote: ↑Wed Jan 26, 2022 2:57 am We could also argue a lot about whether stallions should shuttle. I think that it's probably hard on them overall, but they're individuals. More Than Ready is on one end of the spectrum, doing it successfully for so many years, without missing a beat. A stallion flipping his lid, like Bolt d'Oro, is the other end of the spectrum. Most are probably somewhere in the middle. They can handle it for a while, but have to stop as they get older, their fertility drops and it becomes too physically taxing. Some become too valuable to shuttle. Some find a better niche in the country where they shuttled, ala Artie Schiller. Some don't do well enough to justify continuing.

I would prefer it wasn't done. However, I know there are bills to be paid. And it seems like Spendthrift acted responsibly with Bolt, sought the best help, made accommodations to improve the situation and didn't shuttle him again. It's not like you could have predicted how he would react.

Funny thing is now they sold their Australian farm.

Danniwolfe wrote: ↑Wed Jan 26, 2022 4:51 am

mariasmon wrote: ↑Wed Jan 26, 2022 2:57 am We could also argue a lot about whether stallions should shuttle. I think that it's probably hard on them overall, but they're individuals. More Than Ready is on one end of the spectrum, doing it successfully for so many years, without missing a beat. A stallion flipping his lid, like Bolt d'Oro, is the other end of the spectrum. Most are probably somewhere in the middle. They can handle it for a while, but have to stop as they get older, their fertility drops and it becomes too physically taxing. Some become too valuable to shuttle. Some find a better niche in the country where they shuttled, ala Artie Schiller. Some don't do well enough to justify continuing.

I would prefer it wasn't done. However, I know there are bills to be paid. And it seems like Spendthrift acted responsibly with Bolt, sought the best help, made accommodations to improve the situation and didn't shuttle him again. It's not like you could have predicted how he would react.

Funny thing is now they sold their Australian farm.

True, but other major outfits like Darley and Coolmore have Australian farms and continue to shuttle stallions from their US and European farms. I understand why it made financial sense for Spendthrift to shuttle some stallions to their farm in Australia, even if I'm not a fan of shuttling in general. And it makes sense that Bolt d'Oro was one they wanted to shuttle, since his sire had some success there and Bolt was a precocious 2YO himself.

I firmly believe bolt was a horse who was not happy shuttling and being bred year round and he let his handlers know that via his aggressiveness and behavior. Some stallions can handle the rigors of shuttling and breeding both hemisphere seasons and some stallions can't. Horses are all individuals. Also remember, offspring may inherit some of Bolt d'oro's traits and temperament but may not inherit it all. A horse gets just as many inherited traits from the dam as it does the stallion

Honestly I'm surprised we don't hear more stories of stallions getting stressed out and aggressive. Not that anything we do with Thoroughbreds is natural, but keeping a group of actively breeding stallions in the same barn together probably stresses at least a couple of them out.

Horses are social animals, most probably aren't bothered by other stallions. Being kept in a barn with other stallions at least gives them some sort of social interaction as artificial as it is. If they are stressed out or intimidated, which will most likely show with aggressive behavior, then the farm needs to make changes like Spendthrift did for Bolt d'Oro.

In the wild bachelor that don't have a band of mares yet and old stallions that lost their band of mares, hang out together. I follow the Pryor Mustangs, famous for Cloud the Stallion if you ever saw the PBS documentaries.
There have been bands that have best friend stallions that are both in the band, the one is the lead stallion that breeds the mares and the other is like his bodyguard that protects the band from other stallions. Its pretty amazing. But even the different band stallions can be friends and their bands hang out together. The stallions play together sometimes. But on the other hand there are those stallions who don't want to be with other stallions and are by themselves. Or once they get some mares they take them away from the other horses and live off by themselves.