Is it true that "You can tell a gelding, you can ask a mare, but you must discuss it with a stallion"?

I grew up riding at a barn who's owner believed people should ride mares only enough to decide which ones to use for breeding, and only expert riders should ride them. She wouldn't even allow mares boarded.

On the other hand, some of my favorite horses since then have been mares. The saying implies that geldings are easy to handle, mares a little harder, and stallions the hardest of all.

To an extent it's true. Stallions are aggressive and have a high libido. And a mare's hormonal cycles can, sometimes, make her less predictable than a gelding.

But it's not always true. I've ridden some highly dominant geldings and some really laid back mares. This saying is often used to justify gender-based "prejudice" when breed and bloodlines are often more important. (Stallions are more difficult, though, which is why we have so many geldings).

Would An Opponent Really Cut The Saddle Girth?

You see this a lot in fantasy battles. A fighter on foot manages to cut a mounted warrior's girth, usually without injuring the horse.

Okay, how about a realism check here.

Here's a saddle attached to a horse. It's an English saddle because it's easier to see. The black strap at the bottom, not many shades darker than the horse, is the girth. As you can see, the girth fits snug to a horse. When riding, an English girth should be snug enough that you can insert your fingers between girth and horse but not your hand. It's literally right against the animal's body. Now, try to imagine cutting that with a knife or, worse, a sword, without injuring the horse. While the horse is moving.

Now, add this. Here the horse has a rider. You can just see the girth here...it's that dark stripe just behind the horse's shoulder. What is between any assailant and the girth? Yup. The rider's leg. Which in a battle situation would probably be armored. In order to get to the girth, the assailant would have to go under the horse - and a trained war horse would promptly kick them in the head.

Cutting the saddle girth in the heat of combat is simply not feasible unless your assailant is practically superpowered or just that insanely lucky.

Reins are more vulnerable, but losing a rein on a very well trained warhorse would not be an issue - they would almost certainly be trained to ride mostly off of the legs and seat to free up the rider's hands to fight.

What Is The Pesade?

I promised I'd talk about the "Airs Above The Ground" - so I will. The airs above the ground are not seen in modern dressage, but are retained by the classical school. There are seven different airs above the ground, all of which are based off of offensive or defensive cavalry maneuvers.

So I'm going to start with the pesade, which is the first of them a horse is taught.

The pesade is quite simply rearing on command, as shown here:

(Image source: Hackmann via Wikipedia Commons). The spectacular spotted horse is not an Appaloosa, but a Warmblood breed called the Knabstrupper.

Although it's not always called that, the pesade is often seen in trick riding and performed by movie horses. A fighting horse would be able to strike an opponent with the front hooves from this position. Or simply intimidate them into giving up.