Maturity II: The Yin-Side Story

I’m a mare person. My favorite riding horse is a stallion, and I love geldings, but whenever I’ve gone out to buy a horse, I’ve come home with a mare. It’s not just that a mare of good quality and good breeding gives you the option of increasing the barn population, though that’s a nice, practical consideration. It’s that I like the ladies.

The old horsemen used to say, “You tell a gelding, ask a stallion, and negotiate with a mare.” Geldings will take orders pretty well. Stallions will accede...