Neuter
The window that neuters a male: he becomes a gelding. A text of explanation, a button, and it is done — but it is final, and it costs 10,000 sulkies.
What you gain from it
Obedience, and it is acquired for good: its current level, its maximum and its reference value rise together. The gain is drawn at random, so unknown in advance, and it is markedly more generous on Chorus than on the two other worlds.
Obedience does not win a race on its own, but a disobedient horse loses time at the start and gets disqualified. It is therefore a real improvement, above all for a horse whose form line carries some Ds. See the jockey.
And above all: no more bad days, on Almina and Bezir
This is the least known advantage, and by far the most important. On Almina and Bezir, a gelding's biorhythm never goes below zero. Its curve goes on rising and falling, but its troughs are turned over: what would have been a bad day becomes a good one.
In other words, a gelding can always be entered. Where an entire male obliges you to wait for a good period — and therefore to let races go by —, the gelding runs when you like, without ever paying for a dip in form. Over a whole career, that is worth far more than the gain in obedience.
On Chorus, that rule does not exist: the biorhythm there reacts to what you do with the horse, and a gelding is treated like the others. Neutering gives him in exchange a one-off push to his resistance biorhythm, at the moment of the operation — a helping hand, not a permanent privilege.
To read a biorhythm, see The horses.
What you lose by it
Two things, and the first is the real decision.
Breeding, for ever. A gelding no longer covers mares. If the horse has the slightest breeding value — a good pedigree, characteristics you would like to pass on —, neutering him amounts to giving up everything he could have produced. And a stallion sometimes brings in more in matings than in races: see My stallions.
The races reserved for males. Some are; a gelding is no longer admitted to them.
When the game refuses
- The horse is not a male — a mare or a gelding already neutered.
- He is for sale. The sale has to be withdrawn first: you do not modify a horse another player is in the middle of examining.
- You have fewer than 10,000 sulkies.
- He is already entered in a race reserved for males. Neutering would make him ineligible for a race he is entered in; withdraw the entry first.
The right moment
There is no reason to wait, since the gain is acquired once and for all and benefits the whole of the remaining career. The only question is the breeding one, and it is settled early: a male neutered at one year old has never had the chance to show what he was worth as a stallion. If you hesitate, race him first — his results will tell you whether he deserves to be kept entire.