I'm a mare person. By the luck of the draw, every horse I've ever gone out and bought has been a mare. My boys were born here--bred, or bought in utero along with Mom. Most of my homebreds have been fillies, and that's exactly how I like it. When I place my order, in general I ask for the indoor plumbing.
And yet, there's this persistent rumble under the surface of the breed. The mares have a rep. The boys are the easy ones, relatively speaking: gentler, kinder, less difficult to train. It's not just that the ladies are too valuable as broodmares to take the time to turn them into dressage horses. It's that they're too opinionated to be worth the trouble.
I'll be fair. There's a grain of truth in that. I've seen difficult stallions and geldings, too--oh, have I. But for the most part, when the Bad Lipizzan stories go the rounds, they'll feature a mare. The kindest of them opines that, well, they're just motherly, you know? They resent any time taken away from the vital job of raising babies. If you absolutely insist, they may give in, but you'll be constantly pushing against the mare's conviction that Mother Knows Best.
Here's the truth: She usually does.
