Proud Cut? Rig? Gelding?

I was given a 15 year old QH gelding named Pi this summer. He is something else to look at, I have never seen a non-stallion horse like him. About 16.1hh, piebald sorrel with one blue eye and has more muscle on him than any gelding I have ever seen. For a few months he was kept by himself, away from my other two geldings and mares. Eventually, we decided to let him in with my club-footed QH/App Tikki, Walker gelding Maverick and Anglo Arab gelding Beau who is always the omega horse. What became immediately apparent was that Pi was dead set on literally killing Beau if he came within 50 feet of him. Pi would go for Beau's head, back, neck, belly, until Beau ran to the corner of the field where Pi made him stay. So we removed Beau within the first 15 minutes, leaving Tikki and Maverick because Pi had had no problem with them. After waiting a bit to make sure that the three would do well together, I started cleaning out the water troughs and doing daily tasks. I returned a while later to find Pi trying to mount Tikki without much success, but he definitely tried 3 times. She gave him a good kick where it hurt, and he didn't attempt it again. Since then, he has exhibited many other stallion behaviours along with being so overly muscled. He does not tolerate men well and is extremely protective of his "mares" be those mares human or horse.

My vet has theorized he might be rigged, but from what I've read about them they are pretty aggressive. Pi is a real sweetheart and a joy to ride, but he seems to lose it sometimes and he gets really studdish.

He was born in Nebraska on a ranch, stayed there until he was 7 when he was brought to Georgia for some reason or another. He had one owner per year until 3 years ago when he previous owner purchased him for a dressage/schooling horse (which he was great at, he loves being around young girls) and then gave him to us when she no longer had room for him. He drives, and is a great dressage horse. It is unknown when he was cut.

Is there a difference between rig and proudcut? Is it possible to know if this behaviour is from him simply being cut late? Is there a good way to manage it? How do you know if a gelding is or not? And is it safe to show a horse that is like this? My mom is considering showing him western pleasure.

Thanks!

Have your vet do a testosterone test on him...that will tell you what his levels are. A rig has a retained testicle. Proud cut is essentially a botched castration attempt where some of the tissue that should have been removed was not. Personally, I think folks simply use the term to refer to a gelding who exhibits studdish behavior as I don't think there are many truly botched surgeries. Regarding his behavior towards Beau, he did not exhibit the same behavior towards the other gelding, Maverick, which leads me to believe it's a herd ranking issue and not a stud issue. If it were, I suspect he would have pounded and driven off both geldings and sequestered the mare for himself. In short, I think there is just something about Beau he personally doesn't like.

Both of my geldings, show studdy behavior around the mares. One was gelded as a yearling and never was bossy until he came back from a month and half at the trainers when he was five. My other gelding was gelded at 4 1/2 years, so he knew what a stud was, he is getting better now that he's been gelded for a year but he is still protective of the mares and the two geldings don't get along. Right now I have the geldings in separate pens with a mare each to keep them happy.

I have a gelding who was proud cut (and no, it's not a botched gelding job, by the way...:( ) He truly thinks he is the King of everything. (But he IS NOT the head of my barn) When he gets around the mares in season, he struts around like he's God's gift to women....in the same breath, he cornered one of them in her stall and beat that crap out of her...weird animals they are. I guess he was impressing her??? It worked, she followed him around EVERYWHERE for quite a while! (Darn weak women! Hehe!) They just have stallion tendencies within the stallion capabilities. People do "Proud cuts" so they have the stallion looks and spunkiness to them. It's a regular practice, but by no means is it a mistake.....

First, "proud cut" is just a term for a horse that still has stallion-like tendencies--it's just what people said to explain why a gelding still acted the way he did. It used to be assumed that there was some part of the testicle (generally the epididemis) left and this was a possibility in the past when castrations were done on fully awake horses who had their legs tied so that they couldn't get up and a vet or some cowboy just whacked off things as quickly as possible to get out of a dangerous position. There days vets perform castrations under anesthesia and can be much more concientious about cutting high up on the spermatic cord. But you still end up with horses that act like stallions because the testicles are not the only glands in the body that produce testosterone and also because these behaviors are learned and a hrose that is already studdy when gelding may just keep acting the way he has learned to act. Personality does play into it as well.....

A "rig" on the other hand is a horse that has one or both retained testicles. It is possible that this is what has happened with your horse, though you should be able to contact the vet who gelded him to see if that were the case.