I recently saw a video of a handler encouraging a stallion to rear and box the air with his front feet. As the stallion stood up and pedaled his front legs, he was dangerously close to stepping over the lead. I winced at the sight, envisioning the inevitable outcome, when the stallion would catch the lead with his front legs, snatch it from the handler and be off and running trailing the lead behind him. We’ve all seen this happen on occasion, but seeing this behavior encouraged was shocking and downright dangerous.
Certainly, it is dramatic when a stallion rears to his ultimate height, and it is a normal stallion behavior in certain circumstances. This was just another example of how misunderstood stallions are and why they are often treated unfairly. Why do stallions rear? Consider the stallion’s perspective. A stallion’s purpose is to breed mares and protect and defend the herd. That’s about it. But our stallions aren’t running free on the prairie — they are kept in small stalls, pens or enclosures. However, in the wild, when two stallions are sizing each other up, there is a certain protocol — sort of like two 18th-century gentlemen having a duel. They don’t march off at 20 paces and turn and fire, but they do have their own fairly consistent protocol. They will sniff, snort, squeal and raise a foreleg
