Older horses - are they all MAD?

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S_N

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I'm sure Berry has lost the plot!! I find it hard to believe he did RDA up till April this year! Maybe it's his lack of routine and coming up to the yard is exceptionally exciting, but I have to say, I'm really not looking forward to riding him
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Having said that, he was acting pretty much as he did before he went all boring on me when we went to college together - I took him with me when he was 10/11 and I was 18 and subsequently sold him (RDA people approached me, due to his affable, un flappable nature) coz we didn't get on anymore. However, before that, he acted just like he did over the weekend. Mini rears, squealing, piaffe, passage, bucking etc.... all in hand I might add, on the way up to the yard and back down to the field....... YO suggested (jokingly - wouldn't do it coz of his age) that when I do ride him, I give him some ACP........ I think I'll make a start by lunging him and long reining, but it's certainly gonna be interesting.....

That all mus t sound like a load of gibberish, sorry!!

P.S. He's approx 23/24......
 
Mine is a bit mad. I can't lead him out or long rein him because when I get half way round the field he starts squealing, bucking and cantering round me
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. Everytime, there's just no reason for it! He's not much better when he's ridden, but at least he doesn't buck, just goes where he wants, at the speed he wants! He's 25...
 
My nearly 40 year old is the worst behaved on the yard, and only 12.2

He has been a nightmare since he retired. Fidgets for the farrier, a pain to worm, won't move in the stable unless you really make him etc etc.

I think he is just like Harry Enfields 'Old Gits' who steal little kids footballs and pop them.
 
My friend has a tb ex racer, he's 20...... going on 4.
Poles are the most exciting thing - and don't even get him started on jumping - he only has to see the lorry and he's like a 3 yr old on sunny delight....

We like to call it 'growing old disgracefully'
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I think he is just like Harry Enfields 'Old Gits' who steal little kids footballs and pop them.

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OMG!!! Just nearly wasted some Amaretto on the keyboard!!!
 
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My friend has a tb ex racer, he's 20...... going on 4.
Poles are the most exciting thing - and don't even get him started on jumping - he only has to see the lorry and he's like a 3 yr old on sunny delight....

We like to call it 'growing old disgracefully'
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PMSL!!!! SO, SO glad I'm not alone!!!
 

lol - I have fallen off him a few times. He likes to put in dirty stops at fences and spooks on hacks - just to keep things exciting, you know.
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He has the best sense of humour.....
 
LOL - well I won't be jumping Berry anytime soon, unless we decide to hunt next winter....... He doesn't dooooo coloured poles - he knows they come down, so doen't make the effort required to clear them - prefers to canter through them
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The last time I rode Nelly before she retired she half passed all down one of the paths, this was a compromise, I wanted her to walk on the path, she wanted to walk on the grass at the side, so she did both, she was 30 at the time!
 
I have a member of the growing old disgracefully clique too! A 24 year old TB who still tries to bite me despite the fact I've had her 17 years and who marches along so fast on hacks that everyone else has to jog. She can put in a dirty stop too like the time we were hunting and cantering along a track when we came round a corner. She stopped, I didn't - very embarrassing. We're also not very good at dressage - she doesn't 'do' the submission bit!
 
my old lad Orville (who i lost last year) got worse and worse with age. i evented him in his youth, and he'd do a really nice test, but the older he got, the naughtier he got... he just saw it all as a big laugh, an opportunity to show off and throw in anything he fancied. when he was about 16, and had been retired for years, i took him to a riding club unaff dr to do a novice test (must've been exceptionally bored that week!) and he managed to put flying changes, passage, piaffe and general unspecified airs above the ground into a novice test. luckily i knew the judge, and she had a sense of humour... i think he managed to come last, quite an achievement.
he would always throw his front legs about when jogging, being led to the field, and would accidentally kick anyone who didn't keep him at arm's length. he never dished under saddle...
oh, and he'd walk along as slowly as possible on a hack if he had a numpty on board, so they'd have to trot to catch up. if he had anyone decent on, he'd throw in the odd buck just to check they were awake... he really was far too clever for his own good, but i adored him. R.I.P. Orves.
 
Mr Bails is mad too, hes early twenties and he'll jump anything, my sharer was riding him in the indoor the other week and got on him off a chair which was left in the middle of the school - he was eyeing it up to jump it! I took him on a pleasure ride last summer with the riding club and he cantered circles round our group for 12 miles he was frothing at the mouth and and nearly fell of him laughing at how naughty he was being. Hes definatley growing old disgracefully but hes such a character hes almost human and I wouldn't change him for the world.
 
Mines the same age and is now a total nightmare to ride, esp in the winter.

He used to be the ultimate in angelic, well behaved TBs right up to the age of about 19/20. Now he's a total git who is constantly trying to buck, rear, spin, has toddler tantrums and generally tries to kill us both!!!!
 
LMAO!!! Awwwhhh, he's happy to see you
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There is a little Connie at the yard in her 20s, and terribly set in her ways - Very funny to watch when she's being contrary haha!!!
 
Deffinatly. Although it's the excitement of doing things they haven't done for a good long while. I was in plaster this time last year after taking the 25 year old (Proper PC/PCE, really had been there done that and won the t-shirt) out for the first time with company to blakehurst, he was like a high racehorse. ...And god help me when so much as a pole was in the arena he just switched on to jump off mood (PC style) Speed of light, turned on a six pence and leaped like a stag over anything.
 
Mines inly 18 and retired, can't ride him, but he is the worst at the moment to bring in, he jumps around like a 2 year old and the three girls just look at him like he has gone mad, he tears around the field like a nutter and can be a bit of a bugger to catch at the moment, he finds it funny to come to you at extended trot and then swish past you at the last minute, but at 17.2hh I don't find it that funny........but bless him I love him so much.......
 
Oh yes, they are.

Flo, who is about the same age, will act like a 2yo racehorse sometimes
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She's always very forward going, but it's the cantering sideways/on the spot that makes me laugh. But TBTH I wouldn't want her a boring old plod cob and you can leave her in the field for a year and she wouldn't do anything wrong, just be very forward going, shes never ever bucked, reared, napped, etc.

My instructor came to teach me on my WB last summer, but she went lame, so I said I'd ride my cob. He was completely shocked as he said he was expecting a plod cob, he said she had more energy/forward going than my WB who is half her age
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Have fun
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P.S. Personally I would lunge him before I got on!
 
I think it must be an age thing!!!
My mare is 19yr old tb ex-racer....she is now (we think) doing things for her own amusement in her own little world!!! We cant work it out!!!
She has a thing about going out to the field in the morning and can jog along all bouncy and then makes a dash for it...runs round field a couple of times and then its head down and eat. She ran off half way down the track the other day like a bullet - no hope of holding her - yet she was walking quietly and with no nonsense! Yet there was a lorry with a delivery of shavings with plastic blowing up in the air when she came back in and didnt bat any eyelid!! We thought she might be naughty the other day as she was late going out due to having her feet done...the girls were geared up for her to dash off but no she went out like a mouse and stood to have her headcollar off and looked as if to say 'What?'!!!She never does what you expect but does the opposite!!!
She was a fantastic ride when being ridden and never did anything like that (apart from the odd bucking bronco session) but now we think she spends time thinking up things to catch us off guard!!! We spend a lot of time saying 'why did she do that'!!!
Her companion is 30yrs old...and she has her 'old' moments ie. wont move over, squashes you if she feels like it. We say she is like a little old lady in the Post Office pushing her way to the front of the queue cos she can get away with it being 'old'!!!!
They are the naughtiest on the yard!!!
 
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