Tell me what your 19 year olds are doing...

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MochaDun

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As per title :) particularly interested to know if your horse has had a quieter life for a few years and then got back into more regular and proper work again successfully after fittening regime :)
 
My 18yo is all but retired. This is due to arthritis and ringbone, he just goes for the odd gentle hack now and again.

My 22yo is still hacked regularly, often for a couple of hours, and still does sponsored rides a couple of times a year. Am sure she would quite happily hunt and compete if that was what I was happy to do.
 
My 19yo is being ridden a bit more often lately. My 9yo daughter has chosen him as her second pony. Of course she's very little. He can barely feel the weight, so he's very happy with the arrangement, and is happily teaching her to jump the odd ditch and log. :)
 
This evening she was being a rude baggage, barged out of the building and had a run round the yard! She takes a little longer to fitten if she has been let down a bit, but otherwise is always as she has been for the last ten years with us. :)
 
Ours fits your description well. She doesn't (and never really has had) great lungs and had a very poor year 2013, looking likely to semi retire. She's currently living where my daughter works at a very busy RS and livery yard, she jumps in the helpers lessons, escorts hacks; the ground's sandy so suits her not so young joints and last week stood for 2 hours while the local boy scouts groomed and practised tacking up for a badge. She's having a whale of a time and this winter will go draghunting 3 or 4 times :)
 
don't have one at the moment, but had a super mare, bought her for my sister, thinking she was 16. my sister didn't like her, as she was too slow, lol. She was a very clever mare, never came out of 1st gear for kate, but she had plenty more gears, even though she was older than we thought. She was hacking, going on fun rides and teaching my friends how to ride when she was 25. Once they are fit and healthy and you don't push them too far, they are well capable of doing more than just hacking. x
 
I'm currently sat with a juice box of apple juice and some Buffy on the TV!

My horse is only 5 so can't comment there i'm afraid :p
 
My 19yr old does pony club, has just returned from camp, has 2 child sharers, one learning to ride and one just starting lateral work with him - he knows what to do, she doesn't. He does sponsored rides, PC and unaffilliated SJ and ODE and hunts in season. He is fit, full of life. But he is also a 13.2 cob. They tend to last longer!
 
My daughters pony is 19, he was a driving pony in his younger years and then had 10 years of being a companion. I re backed him last winter and he is hacking out with her and is the most brilliant pony I could have ever hoped for. He is bombproof on the road and really looks after my daughter. Doesn't look a day over 10 and fit as a fiddle.best £100 I ever spent!
 
Mine mostly gallops around the field and refuses to be caught. He is an absolute fool!

He has a few issues with arthritis but he is in light work and going really well. He had about 18months off in total and came back into work a few months ago and is feeling better than ever. Just flatwork and hacking.
 
My older girl had a fairly quiet life from about 14 to 19, due to her sharer being ill and this reducing her riding ability. However, we got another sharer who was keen to do some low-key competing and once back in regular work, and with a slow build up with a nod to her age, she was back doing unaffiliated dressage after about four months (and thoroughly enjoying it too).
 
Well she's 21 now and doing the same as she did at 19 - fully fit and hacking fast (including extended galloping) on Salisbury Plain. She retired from show jumping before I bought her at 16 but still has an excellent jump when needed - far higher than I dare go; I'm a flat racer!
 
My 19 year old has just been retired due to ongoing lameness. She has had the last year pretty much being a happy hacker, but I have no doubt if she had stayed sound she would have been fit and strong enough to school, hack and do some unaffiliated dressage and low level jumping.

She had three months off when I first got her several years ago after she did a nice job of ripping shoes off, but it was easy enough to bring her back into work. If she had been the age she is now, I would have just taken things a bit more slowly, with extra consideration to her age etc.
 
Mine was in the field for a year @ 19, due to a mottled tendon. (Presumably from 5 years of hard, fast jumping with me as a kid, before I knew better)

She's 26 now, doing Trec weekly, and slowly building some jumping back into her trec rounds. (1 or 2 small 60cm fences per event) - she also LOVES the 15km orienteering section - the last one she was at, she sprained my hand so badly with her bad behaviour that I had to have my wedding ring cut off.

She goes into "semi retirement" in the winters, doing nothing more than hacking once or twice a week at the weekends, with a lunge session in the middle. She likes it that way - but as soon as the weather starts to change, she becomes naughty and obnoxious, and you know it's her way of saying, "hey mum, go get the tack!"
 
I have 2 19 yr olds. One hasn't done much since he was 12 due to foot problems but he hasn't slowed down with age yet. He hacks and does a bit of schooling - about 3-4 times a week is the norm.

The other was in full work doing riding club activities but he went lame in May. He's not insured due to his age so rather than go for investigations he had 2 months box /small paddock rest. He seems ok again now but as we're not sure if it was an injury or the start of arthritis we're bringing him back very slowly as it's quite trial and error. We're hoping to get him back to at least doing some dressage, if not some small jumping. We had our first flat lesson since April the week before last and my instructor was happy with him in everything except right canter (right hock was the problem). He wasn't lame on it, just looked a bit stiff, again, not sure if he just needs to regain some strength in it or if it's an ongoing problem. I wish they could talk!

Neither is doing as much as I'd like at the moment as I've been so busy. After this weekend, hoping things will calm down a bit and I can get back to riding. I'm also looking for a sharer for the happy hacker as he's getting a bit fat.
 
My 19 year old is currently hacking out every day, and then doing a couple of canter laps round our gallops. We are going xc schooling next weekend and I hope to hunt him a bit this season. He's not been in much work the early part of the summer because of my work hours being impossible, so just bringing him up again slowly
 
My horse is 22 now, but she is doing the same stuff she was doing at 19, which is 3-4 days per week of dressage schooling at Elementary-ish, and two or three per days a week of hacking. Not a lot of fast work, but that's sadly an effect of where we live and our crappy hacking than anything to do with the horse. During the summer, when the yard's little XC course is dry, she gets to go round the XC fences about once per fortnight. Except for this summer, because the weather sucks.
 
My sister's horse is 18 and on Sunday they took a 3rd and a 10th place in the Veteran Prelim Dressage at National Finals :) :) :) (oh and my sister is 63) (Can you tell I am very proud!) :)
 
My Welsh Cob is 23 and she has definitely had a quiet couple of years but is doing a lot this year and well up for it.

I outgrew her about 5 years ago but we keep her as I can still ride her just outgrew capability and struggled with time. My mum rode her but not frequently. 3 years ago we bought a bigger cob for my mum but I rode her and so time with the welsh one was on off. Then she had an accident in the field (we don't know what) and damaged her muscles in her hind quarters so she was just turned out quietly.

She has done the odd thing since and last year my mum really got interested in doing more so we went on a couple of fun rides but not too much as she was unfit. Then this year I did a lot of fattening work early on with her as my mum was booked to go on a camp in may, we have been doing frequent fun rides and she has also been ridden a little at pony club. She is now doing the musical ride for out pony club and copes better than my other cob who was hunting all last season and been doing the same work this year. Everytime she comes out she is really enjoying her work and when I get on she can be quite a handful. For the younger rider at pony club she even has to be bitted up slightly (from a French link eggbutt to French link hanging cheek) which has never happened before.

At the start of the year we used some devils relief to help with the arthritis when doing the fun rides but she is off it completely now with no signs of stiffness. I keep saying she is looking better now than she did 5 years ago. The one thing that really helped was putting shoes on at the end of last year, before she was getting footsore and having been barefoot all her time with us which is 10 years we weren't sure what to do, we tried the shoes and have not looked back.

Edited to add, we also have planned for me to hunt her some over the winter to nanny the younger children, I am currently doubting our ability to be sensible enough for this but we will wait and see.
 
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My Father's Andalusian is still SJing at 90cm, doing medium level DR, fast pleasure rides, lots of long hacks, and will be trying her hand at hunting this season. Doesn't act her age (or look it) at all - could still be a 5 year old! :D
 
My 19 yo is working harder now than ever before!

2014 was the first year of BD comps for us, this year in earnest. We are off to BD regionals for Prelim and Novice this weekend, and then AF at elementary in September. We have BRC quadrille in October, and hoping to get my music quals at the end of October to go to Winter regionals for music. Also hoping to have a stab at medium before the end of the year.

:)
 
My almost 20 year old is only used for hacking due to his arthritis, though he still likes a good blast in the stubble fields & can pop the odd small log when out. He is only ridden once or twice a week by my sharer as I have not had time lately but he does love getting out. He still likes a gallop in the field & has given the younger ones a shock when he was chasing them. Though I do try & listen to what he wants, he's pretty good at telling when it's going to a relaxing walk through the park or when he wants a faster ride & pulls constantly or bucks.
 
Glad I found this thread, I have a 16 year old and wondering if I should be easing off his work. I used to jump Newcomers with him (up until about 5 years ago), then had some lighter work for a while, I have been jumping him at home around 90-1m and been to a couple of competitions doing 80-90cm but he doesn't seem as keen as he used to, not sure if it is me or him!
Thinking maybe he needs to ease back a bit on the jumping, as he isn't getting any younger. He is fit though and still loves hacking. Was also good cross country schooling at 80-90cm. He has always been very laid back so sometimes hard to tell.
 
My 19 year old is hacking to get his fitness up for hopefully a bit of hunting this winter! Work commitments meant I couldn't take him out last season, but we did run into the hunt while out hacking one day and had a whale of a time following for a couple of hours. I had wondered whether he was still up to it, but I had my answer! He's not as keen on the bigger jumps these days in general so we would prob only go up to about 2'9 SJ or XC - apparently his comfort zone. He had a quiet couple of years as I was busy at work, but he's still easy enough to get fit. Despite being as keen and sharp as he ever was in general, the only real change has been that he doesn't go really go in the school now; he doesn't like it and at this stage he doesn't owe me anything :)

I think they will tell you when they want a slower pace of life; my other one is younger and would quite cheerfully retire to the field tomorrow. Good job that he is only required to keep the other one company and hack out occasionally with OH/my friends!!
 
My 22 year old is doing more now than when in his teens due to the stable management- we can now turn out 24/7 if we want. Stabling 22hrs a day nearly finished him off due to stiffness. Now I have to ask my OH to wait for me whilst I ride my 8yo!

We don't go in the school and we do 2 or 3 days hacking then have a rest day.

They will tell you what they can and can't do. Excessively soft or hard ground is a no-no....but he would be bored stiff if I retired him.
 
He's not mine, he is an active member of a riding school. Let me tell you, this little Arab didn't get the memo that he is 20. Couple of days ago we are cantering in school going one way. All of a sudden we are cantering the other way. I have no idea what happened or how I stay on. He changes direction like a rabbit being chased by a hound.

He does at least 3 lessons a day, some jumping (about 1 meter), hacking in rather challenging terrain and a lot of fighting with his 8 year old son :)
 
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