'I've known horses return to racing in a week - but I don't recommend it'

1 The majority of gelding operations are done in the spring or the autumn. "It's desirable to avoid the summer, with all the flies around an open wound of quite major surgery," says Caroline George, of Lambourn Equine Vets. "Spring is also the time when, shall we say, less favourable characteristics come to light in racehorses – two-year-olds without fancy pedigrees beginning to show themselves to be not particularly fast, or getting distracted by the fillies and not focusing on the job at hand." Autumn is the likely time for potential hurdlers to be gelded.

2 A straightforward gelding operation, without complications, costs around £300, according to George, who reckons she gelds around 100 horses a year.

3 It takes approximately half an hour to effect the transition from colt to gelding. "A standing castration – which is the routine operation in Britain on young colts with both testicles descended –will typically take between 30 and 45 minutes," says George. "A recumbent castration is generally only done if the colt is a 'rig', has one testicle undescended. Rigs are not common, perhaps one in a few hundred horses."