Elderly neddies

horsemad

horsemad

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Jul 16, 2001
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Belfast, N. Ireland
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I know this is a really difficult question to answer because all horses are different, but how long do horses live for, and is it possible for them to have an active life until its time for them to go off to 'the big stable in the sky' ;)

My share horse is an old girl of 20 - she has no major health problems and she doesn't look her age at all. But I do worry sometimes.....I adore her and can't bear to think of anything happening to her... but at the same time I have to be realistic about how long she is going to be around.

Any stories to share of horses living an active happy life into their late twenties?
 
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I have known several horse to live into the early 40's and still lead active lives, but most of the ones I know have lived until their late 20's early 30's. Nearly all of them have stayed very heathly and in work, and many of then have been competing (reasonably regularlyl) up until they were 25+. However, they did need more suppling exercises and schooling than younger horses, but once they were fit learnt new tricks just as quickly. None of them have passed away due to old age, more often than not because of reoccurring injury/gut/liver damage from neglect from previous owners.

I think oldies are great. Mine is 20 and I have had to virtually retire him due to an old injury that he had when he was younger, otherwise I would still be competeing him and definitely taking him into veteran classes as he is very good looking for his age. Enjoy your oldie!
 
Yes !

My old guy is 30 - but no one has told him !

He is pretty much retired now, but that is more because my parents retired to Scotland and I am in Sweden. And it is really difficult to find people to ride him because he has a mind of his oan and does not suffer fools - he brings them home !

I still ride him when I go home every few months - just around a field. My niece rode him a little bit in the school.

He was doing fun rides until late twenties, when it started to take him longer to recover. These included jumps and stuff.

He still gets lunged every few days because he has COPD (or RAO or whatever it is called now) and the lunging helps keep his lungs and his joints in good nick. Nowadays he lets you know how he feels - if he doesn't feel like doing much he sticks to walk and stops when he has had enough. But more often he wants to rush around at trot and you have to persuade him to calm down !

I was back last week, expecting him to be calm and sensible - and he decided what he really wanted to do was go for a gallop. It would have been irresponsible to let him do it (he IS thirty and hardly ridden) - so he got quite mad with me. Still, I'd rather he got mad than I let him do something that would damage himself. He really does NOT know his own limits

He's quite a character :D
 
I know of a little shetland at my old riding stables lived to be 32! And he was still hacking out lightly once a week then! I think he got colic or something but he had to be put down in the end. His name was Tumbleweed - he was absolutely lovely and even in his old age - he'd still stick his nose in your pocket and retrieve those polos before you knew he was there!! :D

I know a lot of horses in their late 20's so I guess about 20-30 years is average for horses. But I suppose if you look after them well enough - they could probably live longer. (I lost my dog last year - she was nearly 18 - it just goes to show - love them enough and they'll keep going!) :D

Nic
 
where i work, there are 25 horses and ponies on the school. 5 of them are under 20, 2 are over 30, and only 1 is under 10. the 2 who are over 30 don't canter anymore, but all the others canter and jump.
until she developed copd 3 years ago, i used to ride a 12.2hh welsh pony over 3 foot x-c jumps regularly, she's the same age as me (24). now she wheezes when she gets overexcited, but if she were saner and could jump without getting silly we'd still be doing it. copper is 19, and apart from jumping (tendon injury a few years ago and paranoid mother) he does everything he ever did.
we recently lost a horse at the age of 34 from a heart attack, she was being ridden the day before.
at the age of 27, my boss' ex-showjumper took me round a 3 foot jump off course so fast i lost track of where we were and went the wrong way! at the age of 22, the same horse tanked off with me and took me over 2 5 bar gates and a main road at flat out gallop.
we lost my boss' first pony last winter from cancer, she was 37 and was being ridden until she got cancer. she'd been at the yard from the age of 5. her best friend lasted until she was 39, and was retired at 36. i used to ride her when i was little (pony would have been in her 20s) and she regularly used to cart me off on rideouts and jumped like a stag.

a lot of it depends on their early life i think - we have some who were born at the yard or came as babies, and some who came off the new forest or were rescue cases. the ones who've had a bad start seem to get older faster.
i have many more anecdotes of elderly horses, but if i tell you them all now i'll be here forever!
 
The little welshie my sister learnt to ride on belongs to the neighbouring farm. He was 28 when he showed Bry the ropes, even doing a little jumping in the field with her. Now in his 40's he is still enjoying life to the full, pottering around in his orchard. He is such a poppet, a very loved pony and priceless.
 
I had an old cob gelding, we had him into his 30s and did all sorts with him - even galloping on the beach. We don't know exactly how old he was, but through tracing previous owners we know he was at least 37 when he died, probably more.

He started to get a bit stiff the last couple of years but still did light work no problem. Then his legs started to get puffy and our vet reckoned it was probably his heart, and that at his age there wasn't much he could do. He wasn't in any pain, and before he'd got to the stage where we would have to think about euthanasia, I went up to his field one morning to find he'd died in the night. That was four years ago. He was the best little horse I've had; he was grumpy and argumentative but so kind and positive - he took children of five out and really looked after them.

He was still riding out until about 4 or 5 months before he died, and even after that we pottered round the fields quite cheerfully. He needed vigilant worming in his last few years, and cider vinegar and oil helped his stiffness, but I'd have no qualms about buying an elderly horse after having Shadow.
 
My Prince is 21 but you honestly would think he was half that age when riding him. He seems to have no aches or pains, he recently gashed his leg trying to get over a fence and recovered very quickly for his age.

I have only owned him for 8 months and was initially really worried about him being too old. I changed my mind after being thrown off and bolted off with twice!! I soon started worrying that I had taken on too much instead.

His neighbour Bonny is 36 and still works daily in the riding school cantering and jumping.

My only worry with hindsight is that I love him so much now that I cannot bear to think of losing him...which I probably will do much sooner than a younger horse. What I have learnt from him outweighs this though.
 
I have an 18/19 y.o. pony. We only found out last year how old she really was. I was initially told she was a 9 y.o.

She still does all the riding club events and I'm thinking of doing some veterans classes on her next year.

She certainly doesn't look or feel her age. She does get a little bit stiff now and she has started to feel the hard ground.

I'm always fretting about her and I don't know why. I am blessed with having a pony next door to her who is 28 and her owner is always very happy to give me advice.

The owner of my livery yard had a pony pass away recently and he was in his late 30s.
 
My friend's horse is 21yo, behaves like a 4yo (he nicked off with her in flat out gallop up the stubble field this morning!) and is still competing in high level affiliated dressage. There is a pony on the dressage circuit who is 22yo and still competing at Prix St george level. The yard where my horses live has several over 20 who are still leading active lives in the riding school.

One of my trainers had a Dutch Warm Blood that was still being ridden at 30yrs and was ridden up until about 2 months before his death - just short of his 31st birthday.

Many of the Lippizan stallions work into their 30's
 
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