How old is your horse and what do you do with him/her?

S

Sally-FF

Well-Known Member
Joined
1 October 2010
Messages
356
Visit site
I am the kind of person who worries about everything for no reason! For work reasons my horse has had 1 - 2 years off competing, we have done low level Dressage and SJ once every few months, and just general hacking & schooling.
Before this we used to compete at Novice BE and he was fab, he is 14, 15 next year and i really worry i have waited to long and he is now too old to do harder competitions?? He is in the perfect health, still naughty acting like a 4 year old and lets me know he is bored of schooling at home!!

Do you think 15 is too old to go back into eventing next year? I only want to do BE90 with him as everything looks massive to me now!!

So to anyone with 'more mature' horses, what do you do with them and do you ever worry about their age even if they are not showing it??

:)
 
I believe that if a horse is fit and happy to do a job then age doesn't really play a part :) I also don't think 15 is that old!!

I don't have a 'mature' pony any more but I hunted and did pony club on my instructor's old pony until he was well into his 30's. When he stopped being enthusiastic he was semi-retired to just plodding around the block twice a week and when he lost interest in that he was retired completely.

My 12yr old gets ridden 6 times a week and does local unaffaliated showing, dressage, show-jumping, one day events and jump cross plus fun rides and endurance up to 2day 80km but is hoping to do a 65km before the season is over. I consider him to be in his prime at the moment, so am hoping to qualify for advanced next year and maybe race him, once just to say he did it. Would obviously depend on how he copes with the qualification stages though!!!
 
Not at all! A lot of advanced event horses are in their mid-late teens.

My old horse was jumping 1m10 when he was 23, we slowed that down to 2ft9 by the time he was 26 :)
 
my 20yo gets ridden 5 times a week and we jump 1-2 times a week - courses up to 1.10 and the odd fence up to 1.30 - and do a combo of flatwork, hacking and lunging during the other 3 times.
I do worry about him but he will tell me when he wants to stop jumping.
14 is still young :)
 
i've just taken on a 22yr old tb who's just retired from high level dressage and i'm currently riding 6 days a week mixture of hacking and schooling. also i'll add he'd had 1yr off before coming to me so he's not even fit. as long as you take things slowly think they'd much rather do something than nothing!!!
 
Hi
my oldest is 22 and ridden twice a week on a slow hack (i'm old lol) he's happy mooching around and is out grazing during the summer, still fed a hard feed each day even if summer. 2/3 meals in winter x
 
Well, mine is 20and we still go jumping and do ODEs - I was supposed to be oing one today but he decided yesterday to go lame! Hopefully it's just a short lived lamenes. Anyway, he still enjoys jumping etc - sure I only do sort of max 95cms now but that's more cos I am chicken and we went through a lack of confidence phase and i find we as a paur are happier up to that height. I did the RC champs two years ago on him and he thoroughly enjoyed it. I say, do it if they are still happy to. 14/15 is no age at all really.
 
I still ride my 26 year old Arab mare who can still outpace her much younger stable mates.She does sponsered rides and has bags of stamina,never puffs or gets out of breath and her level of soundness is excellent.Have had her 15 years now so she is with me for life.We do the occassional show and could do more but tend to concentrate on my daughters competitions rather than my own.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top