Transcript:

[0:00]

Before we get going today, if you can just do me a quick favor — just hit that subscribe button. It will really help me out and help us out. It’ll let us know that you’re enjoying this content and you want us to keep making more. By subscribing, you’re going to help us do that.

[0:14]

Now, this week’s podcast topic is: can we help your horses live longer? It is a fun topic to discuss because we’re going to look at the data — are horses living longer? And then, what steps can you take to help your horses live longer, compete longer, and just live their best lives possible? At the end of this podcast, we’re going to look at some tips on how you can help your geriatric horses.

[0:50]

To start this off — how old do horses get? In the wild, because that’s our best comparison to domestic horses, it’s estimated that wild horses live anywhere from 15 to 20 years old, which is pretty standard for a herbivore. The wild is a very tough place to live — not only is food sometimes restricted, water can be restricted, they’re chased by predators, and any sort of illness means you don’t have a veterinarian around to help you. So it makes sense that wild horses don’t live quite as long as our domestic horses.

[1:30]

So how old do domestic horses get? Well, there are many factors — breed, for example. Some people say Fjord horses live into their 30s. Minis can live into their 30s. Some of our draft breeds live into their late teens or early 20s. Thoroughbreds — the average age you see is about 25. We’ll talk more about that.

[1:57]

Before we jump into that, let’s compare horse ages to human ages — because sometimes it’s easier to understand in our own terms. I covered this in one of the earliest podcasts I did. If we look at a horse as a yearling, that’s about six-and-a-half to seven years old in human years. Early on, horses grow really quickly, but that slows down. By the time a horse is five and physically mature, that’s about 24 to 25 in human years. Those first five years, they go through their adolescence much like we do, and by five, they’re fully mature.

[2:47]

At ten, a horse is about a 35-year-old human. At 17, a horse is in their 50s — about 53 in human years. At 20, we typically say they’re a senior horse — about equal to a 60-year-old human. This varies by breed, size, and individual, but in general, 20 marks senior status. At 30, that’s extremely old — about 85-and-a-half in human years. At 36, that’s around 100 in human years. So when we talk about horses living into their 20s, that’s past 60 in human years; into their 30s, that’s like us living into our 80s; into their 40s is rare territory — and I’ll tell you today about the world record holder for the oldest horse.

[3:55]

The other important question is: are horses living longer today than they did years ago, or even 20 years ago? We have advanced so much in veterinary care — treating diseases, using modern vaccines, controlling parasites and worms, and providing better overall care. Horses today survive conditions they wouldn’t have in the past.

[4:30]

The other major factor is diet and nutrition. Today, horses are fed diets specifically tailored to them. A hundred years ago, it was mostly straight grains and hay. Now we have diets for all classes of horses, including seniors. We know specific nutrients, vitamins, and minerals horses can be deficient in, and we have targeted mixes to address that. We even have nutritional approaches to help limit arthritis and other age-related conditions. Specialty diets and supplements are helping horses live longer — and the data supports it.

[5:24]

So, yes — horses are living longer today in the 2020s than they were in 2000, the ’90s, or the ’80s. Some of the best data comes from the United States, from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, which surveyed over 10,000 horse owners across the country. They looked at data from 1998, 2005, and 2015.

[6:02]

In 1998, the percentage of horses over the age of 20 was 5.6%. In 2005, that went up to 7.6%. In 2015, it was about 11.5%. So in less than 30 years, the percentage of horses over 20 doubled. They attribute this to advancements in healthcare across a horse’s lifetime, including nutritional products designed for older horses, improved disease treatments, better management of conditions like PPID (formerly known as Cushing’s), better lameness care, laminitis treatment, and just our overall understanding of equine care.

[7:34]

Average lifespan today is 25 to 30 years for domestic horses. Wild horses are lucky to see 15, with 20 being rare. Some domestic horses make it to 30 — Picasso, a stallion in Colorado, lived into his 30s, which is rare. Racehorses often live into their 20s, Arabians tend to live longer — sometimes around 30 years — minis can reach 35, and draft horses average in the low 20s to late teens.

[8:40]

Historically, “middle-aged” horses lived much shorter lives. In the 1600s, horses lived to about 15. In colonial America, about 8 years. In the 1800s, about a decade. Lifespans steadily increased in the 20th century, and in the 21st century, we’re pushing them a few more years beyond what was once typical.

[9:20]

And then, just to back up some of those averages, there was a study in Preventive Veterinary Medicine published just a couple of years ago — “Factors Associated with Mortality of Geriatric Horses in the United Kingdom.” The median age at death was 24.4 years, and that was over a thousand horses they looked at.

[9:43]

Now, the next story I want to talk about — because it’s going to lead into how you can help your horses live longer — is the story of Old Billy, the barge horse. I’ve spoken about him in a previous podcast. He is the world record holder as the oldest known horse, and he lived to be 62 years old, which is phenomenal.

[10:11]

Old Billy was born in 1760 in northern England and died in 1822. Some of you might be skeptical — maybe they got the horses mixed up — but he wasn’t. He was owned and managed by the same person for those 60 years. He was bought by Henry Harrison when Billy was about two years old, and Harrison owned him throughout his life. Billy worked for a navigation company, and so did Harrison, who cared for Billy until the end. There are portraits of them together later in life — Billy was famous in England for his age.

[11:08]

They called him a “barge horse,” meaning he pulled barges down the canals in England — moving goods from Manchester to Liverpool, coal from the mines to where it was needed. This was during the Industrial Revolution in the late 1700s and early 1800s. They also think Billy worked as a “gin” horse — not gin the drink, but engine — hooked up to a rotary wheel to help raise or lower cargo on the canals.

[12:04]

The point is, Billy was a working horse throughout his life. He was constantly strengthening his muscles, moving about, and likely being fed appropriately for the day. He wasn’t sedentary. In 1822, shortly before he died, veterinary surgeon Mr. W. Johnson wrote that Billy “had the use of all his limbs in tolerable perfection, lies down and rises with ease, and when in the meadows will frequently play and even gallop with some young colts.” So, even at 62, Billy was active and healthy, showing no signs of approaching death.

[13:10]

His obituary, published in January 1823, read: “Wednesday night this faithful servant died at an age which has seldom been recorded of a horse. He was in his 62nd year.” His skull is in the Manchester Museum; his teeth show extreme age. Toward the end, he was likely eating soft mashes because he couldn’t chew much forage, but he was very well cared for.

[14:25]

We can take lessons from Billy’s life. He wasn’t retired out to pasture with no exercise. That concept is outdated. Even veterinarians today say you don’t want to just put your old horses out and leave them without some kind of movement or strengthening work. You don’t want to push them to exhaustion or cause pain, but they need activity. In humans, too, when we become sedentary, our bodies start to shut down and lose strength. Movement helps preserve function.

[15:52]

Pasture turnout is critical, but simply retiring them there and doing occasional medical checks won’t help them live as long. They need exercise, activity, and engagement. Even in athletic horses, studies have shown performance horses — like show jumpers — still competing and winning in their late teens. The average peak performance age might be 10–12, but many stay competitive into their late teens. Some horses don’t really hit “geriatric” status until their mid-20s.

[17:29]

Old Billy didn’t retire at 20 — he worked into his late 50s. In his 60s, they eased his workload, but he remained active. That’s 40-plus years of productivity — incredible for a horse.

[18:11]

Before we talk about how we can help horses live longer, it’s important to understand the challenges geriatric horses face. What diseases and conditions appear most often? And how do we prevent them? A recent study in the Journal of Equine Veterinary Science — “Aging Equids: Understanding the Experience of Caring for a Geriatric Horse with a Chronic Condition” — looked at hundreds of horses over age 20, with an average age of 25.

[19:43]

Okay, so up there, the geriatric horses — by far, the most reported condition was osteoarthritis, which is not too surprising. Forty-one percent of horse owners reported that their aged horses were experiencing that. The next one — and again, we’re going to talk about this a little bit later — is PPID, which is what we used to call Cushing’s Disease. It predominantly affects aged horses — 26, almost 27% of horse owners reported their horses suffering from that condition.

[20:12]

The third was dental disease or dental conditions — about 15%. So not too bad, but again, we’re going to talk about teeth here in a second. Some of the eye problems affected 11% of the horses — starting to get some blindness and cloudy eyes. Laminitis — around 9.8 or 10%, which is typical: one out of ten horses is going to experience laminitis every year. Skin cancer — 9%. Heaves, or equine asthma — just under 8%. Then things like diarrhea, heart abnormalities, Lyme disease — 3%. Other cancers — 3%. Anemia — one and a half percent. And then you get into some lameness in the “other” category — around two and a half to 3%. Tendon problems — 2%. Navicular — 2%.

[21:22]

So you can see all those conditions that — a lot of you, if you’ve been around horses long enough — you’re going to run into. Those are the conditions our aged horse population is experiencing. Then in another study out of the UK — that one earlier I talked about, with the average age of 25 — similar things: neoplasia, PPID, equine metabolic syndrome. That was upwards in the numbers they reported for horses being euthanized.

[21:51]

But across the board, you’re seeing these horses running into joint issues, Cushing’s Disease, and some underlying lameness. As we get older — even in me, in my older years — you get some aches and pains. So, how do we help the horses get through that, or — here’s really the best way to look at it — how do we get the horses to old age in the first place?

[22:32]

We can look at Old Billy and these horses living longer and ask “Why?” What’s the common occurrence? Sure, you get the occasional horse — like Old Billy — who was one in millions. But if we look at the averages, what is helping horses live longer? One of the things always goes back to diet and exercise. And diet is critical — critical to a horse’s health and well-being, and I think that’s a good place to start.

[23:02]

We’ve already talked about exercise, and I don’t need to say much more about that except: talk to your veterinarian, especially with your older horses. You want some exercise — maybe get them in a round pen, maybe go for an easy trail ride. I will tell you, as a horse gets older, their backs change, so make sure your tack and equipment is appropriate for them. You want to make sure they’re exercising, getting freedom of movement, and building muscle. As we get older, we don’t build muscle as easily as in our teens or twenties — but we can still build muscle, and we can help horses do that with diet.

[23:53]

In the last 40–50 years — even just in the last 20 years of my career — the nutrition data has changed so much. Our understanding of horse diets and specialty feeds is incredible. Diet is a big factor in helping horses live longer lives. When horses exercise, they need support for muscle building and recovery — exercise is a good stress, but we need the body to recover. Forage provides much of that, but there are gaps in the diet. A horse needs more than just forage.

[24:54]

Just to give an example — selenium. It’s the easiest one because many soils around the world are deficient in selenium. Selenium is a critical antioxidant, and oxidative stress causes some of the conditions we see. If we have a diet deficient in selenium, vitamin E, and other critical antioxidants, we’re not helping the horse live longer. But if we feed them correctly — enough antioxidants, proper amino acids to build muscle, all the other micronutrients — when we fill those gaps, the horse is getting everything they need.

[26:05]

The other aspect — and this is where horse owners go wrong — is overfeeding. I’m talking about trace elements, vitamins, minerals that are deficient — but also about giving too much overall energy in the diet. Over half the horses in the United States are too heavy — body condition score over six — according to data from the American Association of Equine Practitioners. Feeding too much energy — carbohydrates, sugar, starches, fat — can lead to overconditioning, which stresses joints, can lead to laminitis, heart disease, and a shorter lifespan. I guarantee you Old Billy was not obese — he was probably a 4 to 5 body condition score on a 1–9 scale.

[28:08]

We have to be cautious — meet their nutritional needs without overfeeding energy. Too much can lead to equine metabolic syndrome, which the UK study showed had a high incidence in older horses. Briefly, I always taught it like type 2 diabetes in humans — when we eat sugary, starchy meals, insulin spikes to store that glucose. In equine metabolic syndrome, they can’t regulate that properly, leading to too much insulin in the blood and other issues. That’s going to shorten their lifespan.

[29:03]

So again, obesity is a big problem. Horses need to be in a body condition score of 4.5–5 out of 9. You can do that with high-quality forage and a good vitamin-mineral mix — most horses will do well on that.

[29:22]

Then you get the horses that are competition horses or senior horses that don’t digest as well, don’t chew as well — they may need some additional energy, amino acids, or specific nutrients. But again, diet is one of the leading ideas on why horses are living longer — because we are feeding them better and smarter.

[29:51]

Now, just a quick plug: if you’re very confused, talk to an equine nutritionist. Go to Mad Barn, top right — “Analyze Diet” — throw your details in there. We’ll give you a free diet analysis on what you’re feeding your horse and what they need every day. Knowledge is power. That’s totally free — no hitch, no requirement to buy anything. If you haven’t done it, I highly recommend it, because looking at these diets, we’re tending to overfeed energy, overfeed protein, and miss out on key nutrients like selenium, zinc, copper — critical for immune system function. Horse owners just don’t always know, because we all want to do what’s best for our horses, and until you have the knowledge — well, that’s what you’re getting by watching this podcast. So, diet and exercise are two very key points in helping your horses live longer.

[30:50]

Another aspect — dental, teeth. Horses range from 36 to 44 teeth. All horses have 12 premolars, then 12 molars — both sides, up and down in the mouth — 12 incisors in the front, and then you get a range of wolf teeth and canine teeth. That’s why you see a range in 36 to 44 — it’s genetically driven. Our teeth emerge with enamel and stop growing, but horses’ teeth continue to grow and erupt until they’re about 20, and then they stop. When you had Old Billy, they talked about his teeth being horrid — but he was 62! That’s why he was eating mashes.

[31:46]

You want your horse’s mouth checked at least once a year by your equine veterinarian — in geriatric horses, maybe twice a year. Sometimes they lose teeth, crack teeth, or — more typically — chewing forage will grind teeth unevenly, causing sharp points. That affects how they chew. The whole idea is: take a stalk of grass — the horse chews it, breaks it down, swallows it with saliva, and then digestive enzymes and gut microbes can access the nutrients. If a horse can’t chew well, you’ll see quidding (food falling out of the mouth) or larger particles swallowed, which reduces digestion efficiency. Sharp points can also cut the tongue or cheeks — very painful. So, every horse should get their teeth looked at yearly, and older horses possibly every six months as preventative medicine for longevity.

[33:28]

That means your horse needs to see the vet at least once a year, especially once they hit late teens or 20. They need vaccines — we just did a podcast on this. If you don’t vaccinate, chances are they could get a disease and die. For example, West Nile Virus — if they’re not vaccinated and a mosquito carrying it bites them, they can die. Horses die from it every year in the Americas. Wherever you are in the world, you want to make sure they’re protected. As we age, immune systems weaken — same for horses — so once they hit their 20s, they’re less able to fight off disease and parasites.

[34:13]

Parasites — you want a good deworming program. Work closely with your vet — they know the parasites in your area and in your soil, and they’ll guide you on fecal floats, identifying bugs, and treating horses. This is critical for any horse, especially older ones. Again — diet is critical to support the immune system with all needed nutrients — but also preventative medicine: dental care, vaccines, and parasite control — all critical for older horses.

[35:08]

Okay, so let’s talk about Cushing’s Disease — now called PPID (Pituitary Pars Intermedia Dysfunction). This affects upwards of 20–25% of horses over the age of 15. I’ve seen Cushing’s horses with curly coats, poor muscling, and other signs — abnormal hair coats. If you haven’t seen it, Google “Cushing’s horse” or “curly-coated horse” — you’ll recognize it. In some breeds and in colder climates, they develop thick coats in winter — but they should shed it in summer. With PPID, they don’t. Other symptoms: muscle atrophy (loss of topline), poor performance, fat deposits in odd spots, weight loss, infertility issues, abnormal sweating, increased thirst and urination, and immune system problems.

[36:38]

There’s a great article on madbarn.com — “13 Signs of PPID in Horses: Long Hair Coat, Muscle Loss, and More” — reviewed by Dr. Eleanor Kellon, a very well-known veterinarian on our team. It’s worth reading. Recognize the symptoms and work with your veterinarian on treatment. There’s been a lot of research in the last couple decades — including a very good paper, “PPID in Horses,” published out of Australia — which confirms PPID is the most common endocrine disorder of geriatric horses. About 25% of horses over 15 may have it. Endocrine means hormonal imbalance.

[37:39]

The paper goes into the pathophysiology, but bottom line: we don’t really know the cause. We do know stress in the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis plays a role. My PhD was almost entirely on stress in horses and its impact on reproduction. In essence: a stress stimulus in the brain (hypothalamus) feeds to the pituitary gland (where dysfunction occurs), then to the adrenal glands, releasing adrenaline. There’s an abnormal alpha protein — similar to Parkinson’s disease in humans. Oxidative stress can lead to cytotoxicity and neuron degradation in the brain.

[39:02]

So, when we talk about diet — antioxidants may help. We don’t have definitive research yet, but it’s being studied. Diets high in antioxidants versus low might help stem the tide of this disease. The good news is: even though PPID affects nearly 1 in 4 horses over age 15, we do have tests to identify it and supportive care to help manage it. And we know more about it today than ever before.

[39:35]

So as this podcast ages, as we move forward in the 2020s into the, say, 2030s, you know, there could be better treatments out there as we identify this disease and the causes and then preventative. But again — dietary, exercise is good. Exercise gets the blood flowing, gets nutrients to parts around the body. You know, then we're looking at stress — there are good stresses and then there's bad. Like I said, I studied a lot of this in my PhD and my further-on studies. This is where I made my mark in the equine research world, was looking at reducing stress for a healthier, longer horse life.

[40:13]

The impacts on reproduction and stress is bad. Some stress is good, like exercise, but it is bad. And so putting this podcast together, we know stress isn’t great, so how do we help horses live their best lives if we want them to live longer? And the data shows if you take care of them — dietary, and their teeth are checked, they’re getting good vet care — that can extend, for most horses, four years to their life, which is incredible. But then there’s welfare, and that’s been a recent… you know, there’s a method to my madness — I’m mad about horses — there’s a method to my madness.

[40:55]

We just talked about welfare and the five domains, and here I’m going to get really nerdy about stress and how the five domains can help stress. One of the things we know stress does is it causes cell turnover. And I used to give this talk — and this talk, I get so nerdy, just bear with me because I get really excited about it — because I really think it’s the future of medicine, longevity. There are a lot of geneticists talking about this, and when we look at humans living well into their hundreds and beyond, we go to the DNA of our cells.

[41:31]

Every cell has DNA in it — or most cells have DNA in it — and at the end of each DNA strand are what’s called telomeres. And every time the DNA replicates, your telomeres get shorter and shorter and shorter, and that leads to aging in the body. And this is a different discussion for another day, but what it does is your body isn’t as efficient, especially as those telomeres are getting shorter and shorter. And there’s much more research going into this to explain it better, but stress can accelerate cell turnover. Right? So your telomeres are getting shorter and shorter and shorter, and it brings on aging sooner.

[42:32]

So that’s why stress — this is just one aspect of stress that isn’t good — we can tie it directly to biology. So there’s this great paper, and again, I’m going to save this discussion for another day, but “Telomere Regulation: Lessons Learned from Mice and Men — Potential Opportunities in Horses.” And the author is talking about how horses are a great model to study this because they do live long, right? We know well into their 20s, some into their 30s, and telomere shortening is linked to a lot of human diseases. And if we can find medicines or treatments to slow down telomere shortening or re-lengthen them or whatever, some people think that’s the link to longevity — and the longevity medicines and genes — and horses are a great model to study that.

[43:24]

The point of me bringing that up is we need to reduce stress in our horses’ lives. We need to ensure they are living the best life possible, and that’s why the five domains and horse welfare are so important. And you know, you really think about: How can I reduce stress in my horse’s life if you really want them to live longer? You know, what are things I can do? Like I said, we talked about diet, we talked about exercise — what about their environment? Where they live? We know turnout… we don’t want to retire horses to pasture where they never come out of it and don’t do anything else, but we need turnout time. You know, half the day, hopefully. It could be turnout where they’re out there grazing and getting in the sun and running around being a horse.

[44:17]

But also, if they’re stalled, introduce things like hay nets, feeding balls, enrichment that you can do to make their lives better. Not just a little treat that lasts less than a minute, but something that will extend the day for them, that will keep their brains going, that will keep them going. And we talked a lot about that in that podcast, so I don’t need to rehash all that.

[44:49]

The next one was health — again, talked about getting their checks, getting their vaccines, getting their deworming program on board with your veterinarian, getting them monitored for things like PPID and testing for that. And again, preventative medicine — that’s important. Dental checks, farrier visits — we need their hooves healthy and strong, right? So we want to make sure that they’re properly being maintained. And then just letting a horse be a horse — you know, they’re social, let them interact with their specifics and look at other horses. I know stall design is changing — you know, this recent conference I was just at, they’re changing stalls so horses can have contact with each other or at least see and hear and smell their other horses in the barn. All of that’s to reduce stress, and you know, we want these horses to have their best lives.

[45:46]

Now, the final aspect of this is how to help our geriatric horses. And the University of Minnesota Extension — this is Dr. Julie Wilson and Lauren Bulock — very good, easy-to-read article, “Caring for Your Senior Horse.” They talked about physical exams being important, dental checks, saddle fits properly for senior horses because, again, that top line’s changing with them, feeding them their best diet possible, monitoring for cancer, monitoring for PPID or Cushing’s, you know, getting that supportive care. There are things to help horses that are suffering from arthritis — not just nutritionally, but also dietary.

[46:34]

But to go through this again — make sure the horses are maintaining their correct body condition, plan out your vaccines, maybe do some blood tests or urine tests to look for some of these diseases. Early signs for cancer — they said the best places to check are the eyes, muzzle, vulva, or penis of the stallion. Check white areas in the skin because that’s where you see red or gray spots, that’s where — like gray horses too, especially — develop lumps or melanomas under the skin. So monitor those. But again, just work with your veterinarian — you know, have a cancer check, check your saddle — talked about that, feeding and dental care — talked a lot about that, vaccinations and deworming — talked about that.

[47:27]

But again, the reminder: as that horse ages, its immune system ages too, so they’re not able to fight off disease as well. So that’s why it’s very important for vaccinations, deworming, parasite control around your facilities, and then also diet. And then soundness and arthritis — that’s really a big one. That’s going to be a whole other discussion; we’re going to have to do a podcast on that. But looking at supplements like glucosamine with chondroitin sulfate or MSM — you know, some people are finding that’s helpful with horses. There are certain medications — depends where you live in the world — that will help. But if you’re really concerned with arthritis, again, madbarn.com, Learn tab — there’s a very good article on “Arthritis in Horses: Symptoms, Diagnosis, Treatment, and Management,” or another article that’s just been updated, “How to Manage Arthritis in Horses: Diagnosis, Treatment, and Prevention.”

[48:23]

Because that’s a big one as we get older. And just my own — I mean, I’m an N of one, so this is just anecdotal, this isn’t a study — but in my own life, by introducing things like… I drink collagen every day. I am taking multivitamins. I am looking after my health, going to the gym, trying to exercise, stay healthy. And I’ve noticed, especially when I altered my diet and started adding some supplements, my knees don’t ache, my lower back — I played American football, so, you know, had some injuries there — that pain, a lot of that pain’s gone away. And this isn’t just the last few months; this has been the last few years of my life. And I’ve noticed diet, exercise, reducing stress in my own life, meditation, going for walks in nature — all of that has led to less achy joints, sleeping well, all of that.

[49:28]

And so if I apply that to my animals, and again thinking of an older horse that I want to eke out at least another four or five years of their life — that would be so awesome, so incredible. You know, yeah, apply that to them — feed them properly, give them some supplements to make sure I’m hitting all those nutrients that they need to support their bodily function, reduce the stress in their life, get them out exercising, get them being a horse. All those domains are tied into their optimal well-being. And, you know, just love them — love them, love them, love them — and they’re going to take care of you.

[50:07]

So thank you for listening. Again, just, if you could subscribe, that would mean the world to me — it just means we’re going to keep producing this content and looking at new avenues of content coming your way. Again, madbarn.com — you can check us out on social media there too — but a whole host of articles and then free nutrition consulting — it’s free, completely free. You know, go to the top of that webpage and click on it. That’s a good place to start for your older horses or helping your younger horses live their best life and give them that longevity that you’re looking for. So thanks for listening, and take care.