Transcript:

[0:03]

Welcome to this video podcast on examining the top reasons horses are retired. So to start this off — is age just a number? Think about it — can horses still compete in their later years at the level that they competed at when they were younger? That’s really the big question today, looking at all the different disciplines and when to evaluate when it’s time for that horse to retire from that discipline, maybe find another career for them.

[0:44]

And then when do we retire them from that career? When is it finally just to stick them out in pasture because they can’t be ridden much anymore or they can’t compete anymore, and we just want to provide them with a comfortable life until the end. And that’s kind of what we’re going to examine today. But when I ask you, “Is age just a number?” what do you think the oldest champion horse’s age was when they won, say, a big graded stakes race?

[1:11]

Well, let me tell you a story. This Arabian horse — and the Arabian is one of those breeds that descended from centuries of careful selection and breeding. Some estimates say they’ve been around for thousands of years. As a horse breed, they date back to the Bedouin peoples of Southwest Asia, or what we call the Middle East in Arabia. One of the most storied breeds — and this horse was just special.

[1:46]

He was one of the most incredible athletes of his generation. He was born on April 5th, 1983, in the UK. He was registered with the Arab Horse Society, and he was just one of those athletes that could do anything. And I don’t know if you know, like either humans or horses — they’re just very talented, you can put them on almost any field and they’re going to compete and compete well. This was that horse. He was a show jumper, he did hunt seat, he was a magnificent specimen.

[2:16]

And on June 9th, 2002, he was entered into a flat race in the United Kingdom — the Three Horseshoes Handicap Stakes. It was held at Barbury Castle in Wiltshire. This horse was 19 years old, and his name was Al Jabal. And he went on to win — and he beat all the young horses in his field. So when you do the math: 1983 born, raced in 2002, and he still was able to win. And he set a Guinness Book of World Records for being the oldest horse to win a graded stakes race. He was a legend.

[3:05]

And that is incredible to me — to think of a 19-year-old horse racing and still winning at that age. So he just was phenomenal. And you know, when we think about the factors in retiring our horses, obviously he still had the ability to compete and win at 19 years of age. Now, that isn’t typical — we’re going to look at some different age ranges for different disciplines — but it gives you an idea that, you know, horses later in their years can still do some incredible things.

[3:39]

So we’re going to really focus in on at what age should horses be competing in specific disciplines, then when do you think about retiring from the discipline. So we’ll look at some of the statistics and what some of the research has shown as far as those horses moving on to something else. Then, when that third or fourth career comes around for that horse, when do you retire from there? What are some of the age-related factors that would help guide you in that decision?

[4:10]

And then, you know, at the end — it’s when do you send them off, you know, to the great pasture in the sky to go meet with their ancestors. You know, it’s a nice way to put it. So we’re going to talk about that. Now, there have been previous podcasts on aging, so if you’re really interested in this topic, one that was recent was “Can You Help Your Horses Live Longer?” That’s an excellent podcast talking about management and diet and things you can do to extend those careers and those disciplines — but also their lives.

[4:42]

Then we did look at some of this in “Unravelling the Factors of Equine Performance” podcast, and then “What Impacts a Horse’s Performance?” — because age is a big factor. Now, to kick this off, I think we need to revisit the age of the horse and what that means. And it’s easier to put it in human terms because then, in our minds, we’re like, “Okay, I understand — the horse is roughly that age in human years,” and that gives you some idea of their ability, right? Their ability to compete and do some of the things we ask of them.

[5:17]

So when we look at the age chart, or age comparison chart — horses quickly develop, they grow very, very rapidly in those first few years, to where they hit that adult stage at the age of five. And then it’s just a steady on until typically their 30s now — but we do have those horses that live into their 40s, and those really rare ones that make it into their 50s.

[5:48]

So when we look at the age chart: a one-year-old horse — after they’re chronologically one year — that’s equal to a six-and-a-half-year-old human child. So a seven-year-old, right? And that’s 12 months the horse has been alive — not born in May and then January it turns one because of the annual birth date for those in North America — but more 12 months chronological age. That horse would be like a seven-year-old. Then when they’re two — the horse is two years old, that’s 24 months — they’re 13, so that’s like our adolescent entering puberty in humans.

[6:28]

When the horse turns three, they’re like our teenagers — that’s roughly 18 years in human terms. Then when the horse turns four, they’re 20 and a half, 21 years old. So you saw that massive growth those first four years. Now, when a horse turns five, they’re physically mature — and this is when they reach adulthood. So they’re roughly about 25 human years related. If we jump a little bit, they hit middle age around 13–14. So at 13, they’re about 44 years old in human years.

[7:02]

Now, some say horses become aged or senior at 15. A lot of others in equitation science believe it’s around 20 now — because we manage them so well, and because their diets are so good, and the veterinary care is so good — really, horses, when they hit 20, is when we consider them seniors. And that’s about 60 in human years. Now, if you go all the way to the end of this scale that I have — a horse age of 36 — that’s roughly 100 human years. So you can imagine how old those horses are in their 40s.

[7:45]

Going from age one to 15 is where we see a lot of our horses compete. I mean, they start competing at, what, three, four, five years of age — so that’s 18, 21, 25 years of age in human terms. That’s like our human athletes in certain disciplines’ peak performance. And then once they hit that middle age — 44 to 53 human years, so that’s about 13 to 17 years in horse years — that’s when they start to retire from some of these really intense disciplines.

[8:20]

If we look at our professional athletes — and you know, let’s talk about soccer, or football, American football, rugby — a lot of those athletes, once they hit their 30s, they really start to slow down. Now, you do get the occasional one that makes it into human 40 years, and they’re competing — women’s sports, men’s sports, the Olympic Games — and so that’s where you see these 14-, 15-, 16-year-old horses still competing and still winning, like Al Jabal. Like, it’s incredible — he was almost 60 in human years at 19, and he won that stakes race.

[9:02]

So that gives you an idea as far as the age ranges you’re looking at. When you compare it, and you think of the top Olympic horses or some of these other disciplines that we’re going to talk about, it’s really interesting when you look at the stages of their competitive careers.

[9:25]

So, you know, when we look at things like also polo — and then don’t forget our western disciplines — we still have barrel racing, we still have cutting and reining, and all these other sports that horses are doing around the world. You know, as the horse gets older, there are certain things that come about that are going to cause them to retire, right? So obviously age is the big factor. And I need to explain a little bit about what happens to the horse physically as they get older.

[10:02]

Now, in a previous podcast, I talked about this thing called telomere shortening. So just to show you how this is based in biology — when your cells divide, okay, so all of your cells in your body and in the horse’s body — trillions of cells — a lot of them are constantly replacing themselves, so they make copies and they split. And every time a cell copies itself and divides, the DNA gets just a little bit shorter and just a little bit shorter every single time the cell divides.

[10:38]

And at the end, it’s called telomere, and we lose a little bit of those telomeres. And they believe — and studies are starting to show this — that that leads to age-related diseases. So it leads to wrinkles and gray hair and other things, because those cells are just — it’s like a countdown over numbers of years, where the DNA is just getting shorter and shorter and shorter. So that’s happening in the horse — it’s just happening a little bit more rapidly. They’re large animals, so their lifespans aren’t a hundred years like in humans.

[11:12]

Now, one of the things that we start to notice with our older horses — so you start to see some of this at 15, then 20 — but again, you’re going to have differences amongst horses. And to back that up a little bit here too — stress, life experiences — that can influence how quickly cells divide. If you’re stressed, you have higher cell turnover, so you get premature aging. That’s why sometimes you see horses that are not able to compete in their teens, where others are still competing at top level. Then it comes into diet and some of these other things that factor into it.

[11:53]

So, some age-related stuff that we start to see in our older horses: two things with the digestive system are dental health and their decreased digestive efficiency. So, as horses throughout their life graze — and their teeth do grow — but then they stop growing around 20, they may start to get into dental issues, they may lose some teeth, and so they’re not able to chew their food as well. And so they’re not getting as much food, which means they won’t digest it as well.

[12:26]

Then in the digestive tract itself, where you have a lot of cell turnover, it’s not as efficient pulling out all the nutrients from that horse’s feed. So that’s just — it’s biology. Biology is awesome, but that’s part of the aging process. Then when you look at the musculoskeletal system of the horse, this is where you start to see some joint issues and problems with bone health. So we do see arthritis in our older horses, and that is a reason to retire them.

[12:58]

That’s why you’re starting to see things like glucosamine, chondroitin sulfate, and MSM, and some of these other supplements that are on the market to help alleviate some of these symptoms or the pain of arthritis. Then, as horses get older, their muscle mass and their body strength isn’t as much as when they were younger, so they might start to lose muscle mass or not maintain muscle as well as when they were younger.

[13:29]

Again, the cells aren’t working as efficiently, and we think due to that telomere shortening. Then you see things like the heart and respiratory issues — so the heart’s not as efficient, the heart muscle’s not pumping as strong. The lung loses some of its elasticity, so it’s not able to breathe as deeply. You get some inflammatory conditions with the lungs. Then we see endocrine, or hormonal, changes in our older horses — which some of you probably deal with. You see metabolic issues, insulin resistance, things like that, starting to lead to what we call Cushing’s disease. Age-related diseases are a real thing in horses.

[14:10]

So you start to see that, and again, painting the picture of why this horse isn’t competing as strongly into their 20s or 30s, right? Then their immune system isn’t as efficient. Their sensory decline — vision, just like us humans — vision and hearing, as we get older. You know, we need glasses or we need hearing aids and things like that because we’re not as efficient; our cells aren’t operating like they were when they were younger. Reproductive systems go down — reproductive efficiency of broodmares and stallions goes down with age, we know that. And then you’ll see some behavioral changes too — they can get cranky, and you know, it’s like old people sometimes get cranky.

[14:59]

So all these changes do impact their lifespan with performance and their ability to perform in certain disciplines. Now, again, like I said, every individual is different — so diet, life experience, genetics, breed — all of that can impact how long a horse can compete in those disciplines. But when we paint a picture of overall, you know, the age ranges, we get some idea of when peak performance is, and then when that starts to tailor off. So we’re going to look at that now.

[15:32]

Now, I understand many of you probably don’t own a racehorse, but some of you probably own horses that are off the track, and it’s probably some point of interest. Racing careers of Thoroughbreds, and even our Standardbreds — we know when they hit that four- to five-year age, that’s peak performance for our racehorses. That is when they are running the fastest as a group, as a whole. Again, you have those outliers. Then, after that, they get this slow decline, and then by the time they hit six, seven, they really start to decline quickly as far as speed and their ability.

[16:11]

Now, there are horses that race to eight, nine, ten — they’ve won some graded stakes, and Al Jabal won one — but they’re exceptions to the rule. And those are usually geldings that can’t breed because they don’t have their testicles, so they don’t go off to be stallions, and so the owners are racing them until they make the decision that that’s the end of their racing career. Many Thoroughbreds that are well-bred or they do win races and are champions, they get pulled earlier because then they go off to be breeding animals — which is a very lucrative industry.

[16:50]

With our Standardbreds, very similar — they even do have age races for Standardbreds, so their careers follow a similar path too. So when it comes to racing and speed, generally it’s those four- and five-year-olds that are the fastest and that can compete.

[17:17]

Now, when you look at decisions on when to retire — so if we take maybe the breeding animal out of it and look at, okay, when would you retire a horse — and this would apply to some other disciplines. So I talked through this — you can build your list in your head: “Well, if I see these things, then maybe I need to think of something else to do with this horse.” But this was a study out of Australia, and it was appraising the welfare of Thoroughbred racehorses in training in Queensland, Australia — the incidence, risk factors, and outcomes for horses after retirement from racing.

[17:54]

So they were looking at collecting data over 13 months. They followed 544 racehorses and then looked at not only what caused them to retire, but then what happened afterwards. So when they looked at the data of these horses, out of the 110 — so we started with 544, so 110 were retired over this year period — involuntary retirements comprised 51% of the horses, and then voluntary retirements was 54 horses, or 49%.

[18:34]

So that’s the owners making the decision to retire. When you looked at the reasons for retiring these horses — so involuntary retirement means the horse just can’t do it, right? Physically, they can’t. Musculoskeletal injuries was the number one, with 36% of the horses suffering that — that ended their careers. Then the other 12% — respiratory issues, so they were having difficulty with respiration and possibly some bleeding and things that happen with racehorses. Then one had a cardiac problem, one was a behavioral problem. So most of them were the musculoskeletal injury — so 36% of these 110 horses that were retired.

[19:22]

Okay, voluntary retirement — 22% of these horses was just lack of ability. They weren’t getting better through training and racing, and so they were taken off the track. Nineteen percent — they reached their peak level; it was time for them to move on to something else. Eight percent was an impending musculoskeletal injury — so the horse was starting to show either signs of lameness or some injury that was going to get worse, so they decided to retire him. And so that was, again, 49% — so 110.

[19:54]

Now, when they looked at where do these horses go afterwards — this is a big topic, it’s been a big topic for the last couple decades because the racing industry has come under the microscope with welfare concerns and what happens to these Thoroughbreds that are bred to race, they’re trained to race, and then when you have no more use for them on the racetrack, what happens to them?

[20:20]

And this was a big topic at the International Society for Equitation Science meeting that I was just at a few months ago here in New Zealand. And they were talking about second careers for Thoroughbreds. Now, the racing industry around the world has risen to the challenge — I can say that wholeheartedly. The Hong Kong Jockey Club showed a lot of work that they’ve been doing on rehoming Thoroughbreds after the racing careers were over. And one instance — we actually went out to Event Stars here in New Zealand that trains off-the-track Thoroughbreds after their racing careers, trains them in other sports and disciplines, and then sells them off.

[21:16]

And so these horses are given a new purpose in life. So once they come off that racetrack — for whatever reason, off some of those things we talked about — they are retrained and either become pleasure riding horses, or even one of the horses they mentioned was in the United States getting ready to go compete at the Olympics. So these horses do have other careers, and there are other things that they can do.

[21:41]

You know, one of the things is — think of all the different English disciplines: show jumping, dressage, endurance riding, eventing — you see Thoroughbreds in there. And then in some of the western disciplines, you’ll see some Thoroughbreds in there. When it comes to Standardbreds, I found it interesting that the Amish people in North America — they prefer Standardbreds, and so they will seek them out after their racing careers to pull their carts and buggies and things like that.

[22:15]

So there are careers for these horses when they’re done. And just as an example — they do become champions. One I came across was called Over to You — he’s still hacking in his 30s. Chestnut gelding, so he didn’t go on to breed, but with the British team, he’s gone on to win four European team gold medals, two Olympic team silvers, one world team bronze, and an individual world silver medal. So that was an ex-racehorse that went on to compete at some of the highest levels we have in some of those English disciplines.

[22:50]

And so they do go on to become wonderful horses — even just pleasure riding. I have many friends that have off-track racehorses that were Thoroughbreds that didn’t have great racing careers, but they make great animals and great pleasure riding horses.

[23:09]

So that’s one where really the young horses — that’s where they’re really young. Now let’s get into some of these English disciplines and the age ranges at which they compete, and some of the reasons that, you know, maybe it’s time for them to move on to something else. And when you looked at one study — it was the effects of horse age and the number of riders on equine competitive performance — this was published in the Journal of Veterinary Behavior just a couple years ago. They looked at tens of thousands of data points, looking at the horses’ numbers of starts and then their age ranges.

[23:51]

And so when you look at it, they start around four years old, and then they start to peak seven, eight, nine — that’s where you see the greatest numbers. Then it starts to slowly decrease to 19 — you still had 74 starts of a 19-year-old horse competing in these English disciplines. So where, in the racetrack, they’re four, five, six — here you’re seeing six, seven, eight, nine, ten — and then a lot of them start to fall off, they get sold off to secondary careers, schooling horses, things like that. But you still have a 19-year-old horse competing at some of these top levels. So, again — you know, age range.

[24:34]

Now, when you look at the factors on why they were retired from English disciplines, I found this study very interesting. This was published in the Equine Veterinary Journal, and it was a pilot study on factors influencing the career of Dutch sport horses. So this was published out of the Netherlands, and they looked at 4,657 rider–horse combinations, and then they took a subset — 1% of all those horses — to look at the data and evaluate what they were doing and then what caused them to retire out of that sport.

[25:43]

Some interesting stats out of that is — within the Dutch National Equestrian Federation, which is the KNHS, in dressage, show jumping, eventing, and endurance — of those 4,657 horse–rider combinations, there was 70% of them in dressage. So that’s pretty amazing — that’s a lot of horses in dressage. Twenty-five percent were in show jumping, 2% were in eventing, and then just under 2% were in endurance. So that was the breakdown of the disciplines of all these horses registered with that federation.

[26:09]

Now, they had 520 horses that, out of that whole subset, they just picked randomly — 520 — and they looked at the age of them competing. So when we look at that, the overall average age was seven in the horse, but it was plus or minus three years. So you obviously had some four-year-olds, some ten-year-olds, and then you had those real outliers in there — but the bulk of them were in that seven, probably seven, eight range. Dressage — the average was 7.1 years, plus or minus three. Show jumping — 6.7 years, plus or minus 2.8. Eventing — 7.3, plus or minus two years. And endurance — 9.8, plus or minus 3.4 years.

[26:59]

So what that data meant — and they highlighted that — was the horses that competed in endurance were significantly older than those other disciplines. So those horses, and endurance is very intense exercise, averaged ten years old — that’s where those horses are competing at the top level in this federation.

[27:27]

What else was interesting was looking at their career length. So this study pulled that data — how long these horses were in those disciplines. And so if we look at the overall dressage, it was four years on average — plus or minus 2.8 years — so anywhere from like two, three, four, five, six years is probably in that range, the bulk of them. Show jumping — 3.6, plus or minus 2.8 years, so very similar range. Eventing — 5.8, so those horses spent quite a long time eventing; some spectacular animals — plus or minus 1.3 years, so in that four, five, six, seven range. Endurance was 3.2 years, plus or minus two years — so that two, three, four, five-year range.

[28:15]

And when they looked at the reasons that their careers were finished, only 6% were rider-related — meaning the person that owned the horse retired from the sport. Ninety-three, or close to 94%, of them were horse-related. So that’s where we want to be interested in — when do we retire these horses, why they were retired. Now, when you looked at rider reasons — again, it wasn’t very many, but they included financial, time, pregnancy, they moved, they had health problems. So those were some of the reasons that the riders retired or stopped competing.

[28:53]

Horse reasons — so most of them were either sold domestically or sold abroad. So they trained them up, they’d run their careers, and they sold them off for other things, and they weren’t competing at those levels. A small number went into breeding. Another number just turned into recreational horses. Five were retired completely from the sport. And then 80 were veterinary reasons — so that was the other big bulk. So a lot of them were either sold domestically or abroad, or veterinary reasons.

[29:36]

So we want to focus in on those veterinary reasons again, right? So things that you could look for if you decide — I mean, when you sell a horse, that’s your own personal decision — but horse-related, why would the horse be caused to retire from that discipline? So when you looked at the veterinary problems, the biggest one was tendon injuries. So of the 52 horses from this study, 20 of them were retired due to tendon injuries. Eight because of arthritis, seven had neck or back problems, then laminitis, navicular disease, trauma, kidneys, respiration, dental problems, patellar ligament problems, and then just an unspecified lameness. So that was the reasons — but again, tendon injuries, laminitis, and those neck/back problems were the biggest subset of that data.

[30:23]

And then 28 horses were euthanized — tendon injuries, arthritis, colic (always a big thing), trauma, respiratory problems, goes down the list. They had tumors, back problems, and navicular disease. So those are the reasons that they gave for retiring those horses out of that federation. Many of them went on to other things, but that’s the end of their careers in those English disciplines.

[31:02]

So when we look at other disciplines — let’s look at polo. Polo can be very intense, or it could be just fun. You know, and I’ve ridden polo horses for fun — not competed, just went out with friends. These were polo horses that were used for a college team, so not super high-end polo. But those high-end polo horses — they compete into their mid-teens, and you know, some of them live into their 30s. Are they competing at those levels? Probably not, because again, the mid- to later-teens is where you start to see those age-related issues — those dental issues — really a lot of it’s coming with the joints and arthritis, and the animal’s ability.

[31:47]

Then when we look at our western disciplines — I thought, okay, barrel racing. That’s pretty intense — tight turns for horses, incredible speed, puts a lot of stress on the joints of the horse as they do those maneuvers. And come to find out, you have some of these in their teens still competing at the high levels — but again, mainly it’s a younger animal sport, kind of like racing, where your top competitors are going to be those younger horses. You get the obscure one, but some of them — especially like if it’s children’s events or younger adults not competing at the championship level — you get barrel racing horses in their later years.

[32:30]

But then when you get into cutting and reining, some of these other western disciplines that might not be as demanding — physically demanding — on the horse, you see them in their teens. And then again, those obscurities — some compete into their 20s. But arthritis is a big one for them, those joint issues are a big one for them. Can they do it, and is the horse living a good life while they do it? So we’ll talk about that in a second — you know, some of these other signs that go, “Okay, maybe it’s time we move on.”

[33:08]

But again, with these top English, western, and other sports that we compete with our horses — just because they retire from that sport, that’s not the end of their life. There are many other things they can do. That’s why you saw a lot of those horses out of the Netherlands, from that Dutch study, that they were sold and they were either being sold as a pleasure horse or they can become a schooling horse — so they can train young riders on how to compete and properly ride horses. They can become breeding animals — a lot of them do — they go on to be breeding animals rather than continue in the sport, and they’ll go off to the breeding farm because they were such a good competitor. That’s another career for them. And they can compete in other sports that just aren’t as intense.

[33:58]

So when your horse starts to slip or gets to that age, you want to start to reduce that horse’s workload to see how much they can take. Reduce the duration and intensity — so if you’re doing heavy exercise or very heavy exercise, maybe go down to moderate to light. Pleasure riding, if that horse is just not as with it. Maybe go for lighter rides, hand-walk your horse, ride them a little bit, but don’t push them. But you can gradually reduce it.

[34:29]

Because exercise is still great for the horse — they want it, it’s good for their mental health, it’s good for their physical health. So, you know, you can look at dropping levels. If your horse is competing at the top level and they’re still, you know, maybe just a few seconds off or they start to slip, maybe you can go down levels a little bit with them. And that’s where you could sell the horse to an up-and-coming rider if you want to compete at those top levels. You know, and then there are other things — I’m going to talk about therapy horses. They could become a babysitter horse.

[35:01]

And that gets to the point that, when you own horses, you have to plan for this. You have to think of their golden years — and what is this horse going to do when they can’t compete anymore, or they’re at that level? Or, if it’s a pleasure riding horse, what am I going to do when it just can’t ride anymore? And it goes back to when I talk about “Can Your Horses Live Longer?” My really good friend, Dr. Angie Atkin, she had Rosie — 38 years old — and Rosie could, her children could ride on the back of Rosie a little bit, but she just hand-walked her. She couldn’t ride anymore. She was at a beautiful pasture in Florida and was stabled at night and just lived out her golden years with other horses.

[35:46]

So that’s something you have to think about and plan when you own your animal. So that leads me to a good second career — or third career — for many of these horses that you may want to consider, especially if it’s one that you’re like, “Okay, I need to sell this horse off or make sure it has a good life,” because we do love them so much, right? And you want them to live out their years. And I want to advocate for therapy horses. It’s something I’ve always looked at, something I’ve always admired. I have a big belief that riding horses is good for the mind, body, and soul. Research has shown it improves a lot of things in mental health, physical health in human beings, and therapy horses are incredible animals.

[36:35]

These are your bombproof, lovable, calm animals. And if you have one of those that you’re like, “Hey, you know, I need to retire from this discipline, they need to move on,” consider selling them off or donating them to a therapy riding program. They are excellent, excellent animals for this program.

[37:02]

So I looked at, okay, what are the ages of therapy horses? And this was a great study — one of my good friends down in Florida, Dr. Carissa Wickens, is an author on it, and all my friends are authors on this. But it’s a survey of horse selection, longevity, and retirement in equine-assisted services in the United States — just published a couple years ago in Animals, which is a big, big journal. And they were just looking at, you know, what makes a good therapy horse, what’s their ages, and things like that. I was curious about the ages, and in Florida, where Dr. Wickens is at, they had very few therapy horses that were under the age of five — which makes sense. I mean, they’re pretty young, skittish a little bit still — they’re teenagers, right? They’re young adults, a little sprightly, so maybe they’re not quite as calm as you need a therapy horse to be. Like I said, these are bombproof horses that you could put a disabled child on, and you know that they can safely ride the animal.

[38:06]

Then you see six to ten — a spike — but then you start to see 11–15, and then the peak is 16 to 20 years of age. So these later years is where you see most of your therapy horses. These are horses that have a lot of life experience, probably a lot of training, they’re wonderful, lovable animals. Then it goes back down to 21–25, 25–30, and then a few above 30 — very few. So that was in Florida. And then when you looked at other parts of the country — very similar trends. You know, peak 16–20, 21–25 goes down, 26–30 goes down, but then they even had some horses greater than 45 as a therapy horse. Now, I don’t think that horse is being ridden, but there’s different types of therapy — you know, you can talk about bringing a pony into an aged care facility and you watch the people light up.

[39:02]

So those are things that you could think about when you go to retire your horse. And then, when you look at how long these horses spent in a therapy riding program — so most of them, peak, was six to ten years. Then you had 11–15 years, 16–20 years. One horse had been in therapy riding programs for over 30 years — so again, that’s a horse that is born and bred for it and they’ve done it their whole life. And that was in Florida. And then you looked at the other data — very similar trends: six years, seven to ten years, 11–15 years. So that’s a long career for a horse that maybe can’t compete anymore. They’re a wonderful, lovable animal — bombproof — therapy riding or as a therapy horse. That could be a good option for them.

[39:56]

Okay, so if you think about that — and then I always love finding these because I’m such a big believer in education, and whenever I find these master’s theses or PhD dissertations, it always gets me excited because I went down that route and I mentored a lot, and I just know that it makes such a difference to the world. But this was “Horses and At-Risk Youth: An Alternative Approach to Reconnect Adolescents,” and this was Christian Deon out of Cal State University in San Bernardino. And I put this in here because — again, a plug for therapy riding — they wrote, “The findings of this study were encouraging and supporting the hypothesis that equine-facilitated programs can be an effective intervention strategy for at-risk youth.” So again, horses connecting to the horse — it’s just something, you know, I know with that.

[40:52]

Okay, when is it time? When is it time to retire? What is your decision-making process? I’ve given you some reasons that our athletes — our competitive athletes — retire, but whatever you do with your horse, you can look at some of these signs and start to go, “Okay, we need to pull back.” Like I said — reduce exercise intensity, duration, things like that. Again, their mid- to late-teens is where you really want to start monitoring them closely — especially if you’re riding a pleasure riding horse.

[41:25]

And you know, as a general rule of thumb — you know it’s time to retire them when their overall quality of life is reduced and they’re just not capable of going on those long hacks or going for, you know, just a simple ride around the arena. You know, they’re struggling a little bit, and you start to see some of these age-related things — they start to lose weight, they start to lose body condition, they are coming up lame often, they get ill. You know, I know any horse can get ill, but they’re getting ill more frequently — again, like I said, immune system function goes down as we age. They’re just not enthusiastic about it — they don’t want to go out there and work, they don’t want to do it. There are changes in behavior — I think that’s a big one for you too.

[42:15]

And you know, the slowdown on recovery — they can’t recover as quickly. And just using myself as an example — when I go to the gym, I used to be able to go to the gym every day, I could go. I can’t go anymore — I get sore, and it takes me a little bit longer to recover because I’m older than when I was in my 20s. So, you know, I feel for your horse — that horse that’s not quite a 20-year-old horse yet, maybe those late teens — but going out and exercising hard, and the next day that soreness that you feel, and then having to go do it again and again — I’d get cranky, you know? I’d be nipping in my saddle and stuff, I just wouldn’t be happy, right? So same thing with your horses — they get bad-tempered, grumpy, and you know, it’s just something to think about.

[43:13]

The other angle of this is — can you donate your horse to a rescue or a sanctuary? Because this is — and I’m not going to make any judgments on anybody — I’ve seen many situations where people are out on their luck, they have horses, and they can’t care for them. And you know, it shouldn’t be your retirement plan for your horse to send them off to a rescue or a sanctuary, okay? That is why I bring it up here — it shouldn’t be the option, you should have other things in mind. But if you’re in dire straits and there’s no other way, you can’t sell that horse, you can contact a rescue or sanctuary — especially when you can’t even afford to feed them — because we really care about horse welfare.

[44:00]

But this was a study published out of UC Davis — it was “Unwanted Horses: The Role of Nonprofit Equine Rescue and Sanctuary Organizations.” And it’s a little dated, but I bring it up because I was experiencing this too. It was in the late 2000s — there was a huge downturn in the economy around the world, but especially in the United States. And I had heard stories of people turning their horses out into national parks. Now, that is absolutely the worst thing you can do — they’ll get out on the roads, get hit, you could kill somebody, kill the horse. So these rescues were just overwhelmed with the amount of horses.

[44:42]

I had a story — true story — one of my friends went to a horse show, she came back, and there was a horse tied to her trailer, and the owner left it there. That’s how desperate some people were getting because they couldn’t afford their horses. So again, that’s why I don’t pass judgment. But the rescues — the organizations — like in California, there was 39, this is about 10 years ago. Rescues only 39 — and that’s a state of close to a million horses, and they only had 39 rescues that could maybe handle 20. Some of these…

[45:13]

So again, this isn’t a good retirement plan for your horses, but what I found interesting was why owners relinquished their horse to these nonprofits. Okay — and there were many reasons. There were owner-related factors and then horse-related factors. Now, of the owner-related factors, 53% of them — it was financial hardship, economic, or the horse’s owner passed away or got really sick or couldn’t care for the horse anymore. So that was upwards of 80% of all the horses that were rescued or relinquished to these rescues in this study. Then there were legal situations, 10%. Lost interest in the horse, moved — was about 7%. Divorce, 6%. So there were some other factors, but most of it was financial or the owner had physical problems.

[46:12]

The horse-related factors — so this was where I thought was interesting, and again, not a good retirement plan — was unusable due to health issues or for its desired purpose. So that was 85%. Fifty-four percent was due to health issues, and another close to 28% was for the desired purpose — so the owners were just frustrated and they said, “Here, I can’t take this horse anymore, here you go.” The too-expensive vet bills — whatever reason — that’s why they gave it up. And then another subgroup was behavior — so the horse had some behavioral issues.

[46:50]

Now, when I looked at that, in that time the rescues were overwhelmed with horses. A lot of them care for these animals off donations and their love for horses. And again, we know the feed bill of a horse is expensive, vet care is expensive — so that isn’t something, when you retire your horse, to think, “Oh, I’ll just give them to a rescue.” You shouldn’t think that.

[47:15]

Okay, an option for you — and something you can think about in your older horses — and this is like what, you know, Dr. Atkin did with her horse Rosie — retirement cost, retirement farms. Okay, so you can pay to send your horse to a retirement farm that is full of older horses to live out their golden years, just like aged care facilities around the world for humans. And so if you don’t have them somewhere on your property — you know, you can’t keep them on your property, you kept them at a show barn or wherever — and you’re like, “Okay, I love this horse, I own this horse, I can send him to a retirement property where they can be cared for.” They’re not in training, maybe ridden a little bit — it depends on the facility — but you can look for these, and these are around the world.

[48:16]

And when I looked at it, there were some down here, some in Europe, and North America, and whatnot. So just like different options you could look at — there’s different farms. So one might just be — it’s relatively cheaper, it could be a couple hundred a month upwards of $400 a month. Pasture and stall boarding, basic horse care needs are covered, maybe some contribution to feed. So you can look for something like that that’s more economical. But again, that’s still a monthly expense for you.

[48:42]

Farm B’s — a lot, pretty common — horse gets private stall, turnout daily, they have their feed met, their vets are taking care of them. So it’s putting more of the onus on the retirement facility to care for that horse, and they tailor the horse care to that animal. And that’s upwards of, you know, $500–$600 a month — so it’s like a nice boarding facility and they take care of everything for this old horse. Then you can get to the really expensive — if this horse can maybe still compete, you get some lessons, or, you know, if you’re looking for other careers for them. So that can get a little pricey, and they have show arenas, so you have older horses there — like a retirement farm, but they’re very active. So that would be something you could consider and look at — you know, what am I going to do with this horse when I’m done either riding or competing, whatever discipline you use.

[49:39]

So, just to kind of summarize all this — a lot of the reasons horses retire from a specific discipline is mostly due to health, age-related issues. As they get older, they start to get those joint-related issues — things like that — that may, you know, mean they can’t compete anymore. Then also performance — as they get older, they’re not as competitive, they can’t keep up with the young’uns. I mean, you’ve got the Al Jabal, who’s 19, that could still do it — but most of them, they just start slowing down a little bit. Or, depends on what the discipline, not scoring as high as they get older because it just is more difficult for them, you know, and then that can lead to injuries and things like that.

[50:30]

So those are the major reasons you would go, “Okay, time to retire from there.” But don’t forget those secondary, tertiary, or more careers for them. Just because they can’t go and compete at the Olympics doesn’t mean they can’t go and, you know, probably become a good breeding animal or become a good schooling horse — or, like I said, a companion horse for younger horses, trailer companions. People do that with their older horses — this horse is totally calm, I’ve got a more skittish horse, we’ve got a trailer, we’ll load up the older horse next to the younger horse and go. There are other jobs they can do, and it just comes down to two — quality of life and behavior. You’ve got to monitor that horse, make sure they’re living their best lives.

[51:17]

And then, when it gets to end of life — that is where that’s a discussion between you and your veterinarian. You’ve got to ask yourself, “Is this horse’s life worth living? Are they content?” Or you apply some human emotion — are they showing signs of happiness, signs of, you know, joy, or a horse being a horse? Or is it that where they’re really having difficulty getting around, and they’re just not right? You know, each day you’ve treated them, the vet’s come, you have them on these joint supplements, all those things, and they just are not right — they’re just not happy, they’re just not good. Then that’s like in that episode I talked with Dr. Atkin — when she looked at Rosie and she didn’t realize how far she slipped because she’d seen her almost every day, and she had that discussion with her veterinarian, and she decided it was time. And she gave her a beautiful send-off under a southern oak tree in Florida — you know, she was hugging her till the last — and at 38, Rosie went off with her ancestors.

[52:27]

So that is when you make the decision — that’s end of life. And again, that’s a discussion between you and your veterinarian.

[52:33]

So anyways, thank you for listening. Don’t forget you can always go to madbarn.com — you can always search under the Learn tab, over 500 articles, a wealth of information. Please hit that subscribe button, and we’re going to keep producing these podcasts each week and new topics. If you have any topics that you’re interested in, just email me: podcast@madbarn.com — I’ll get back to you. And I appreciate the kind words. So, take care.