This message is from: "Gail Russell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Catherine mentioned an evaluator had said something about Diamont "screaming stallion presence" when pretty much everyone present thought they were seeing stallion bad behavior.
This reminded me of Romulus' evaluation at Libby, during which at least one evaluator said he did not have "stallion presence." I did not take offense, as I had seen Rom exude "stallion presence"...and it was not something I enjoyed. I purchased him after seeing him at Libby the first time he was there, several years before. At that time he was not even taken into the ring. (When I bought him I did not know what I now believe to be the true reason for that omission. The explanation by his handler was that the handler had a bad knee. I am pretty sure it was because Rom might have put on a pretty nasty "show" due to lack of training.) After I bought him I sent him to Beth Beymer for training and then asked her to take him to the 2001 Libby evaluation. Beth did a superb job. When she brought Rom to Libby, he was housed in the SAME pen he had been in the previous time. It was in the center of things, with mares walking by, and a LOT of stimulation. Rom remembered this place, and started to repeat the behavior he had adopted during his first visit to Libby. Rom began to act up a bit, at which time Beth spent considerable time doing "barn sour lessons" that are taught by Bryan Neubert and Buck Brannaman (I am not sure where she learned it.) After Beth's little tune up, Rom reverted back to the behavior she had taught him. When he went into the evaluation ring, he looked like a meek little puppy dog. That was what his "presence" was judged on. It was not the Rom we knew could be there, if left to his natural inclinations. This was a bit amusing to us. That said, another horse (Obelisk) trained by Beth and shown by her at the same evaluation was evaluated highly in the "stallion presence" department. Part of this may be in the fact that Obie is a more powerful horse than Rom, (i.e. the evaluators were probably partly correct about Rom). Part of it may be that Beth had trained Obie from the beginning, so she did not have to put him into quite such a submissive mode in order to safely show him off. The moral of the story.....stallion presence....as seen by evaluators....can probably be influenced negatively by training. Gail
