Horse's unofficial birthday

[roxynoodle]

Thoroughbreds officially all turn one year older on New Year's Day. My horse Malone will be considered 31 year old at midnight. I wanted to share as this makes him a very old horse. He's had quite an interesting life as well. He began his career on the track, but must not have been very good at racing as he was off by age 3. Probably the best thing, but don't get me started on horse racing, lol! He then went on to learn dressage and moved up the ladder to level 3. From there he was a hunter for awhile, but it's definitely not his thing. He has some jumping fear and will over jump often. Hunters are judged on their way of going. So if there should be 3 strides between jumps, you'd better get in 3 strides. With Malone's overjumping he sometimes only had one, or worse, just a bounce, lol!

I bought him at age 13 (he was 13, not me!) and we did eventing together. Eventing is a combination of dressage, cross country jumping and stadium jumping. With that type of jumping he doesn't have to do it perfectly. He just has to get to the other side, lol! Plus we developed a lot of trust in each other over the years and his jumping fear subsided quite a bit. We competed for several years until he lost sight in one eye from uveitis. The American Horse Showing Association does not allow jumping of one eyed horses. We continued on with dressage until it was time for us both to retire.

Despite his age he is still quite active and looks pretty good as well. I'm not sure how much longer we will get to be companions as 24 is the average lifespan of a horse. Of course I hope it's a long time yet, but I treasure whatever we get.

Happy birthday, Malone! I love you!

 

[Rio Mom]

Happy Birthday to Malone! Do you have a picture of him to share?

 

[Mare Miller]

Happy Birthday Malone! Sounds like he's had an eventful life. We have my daughter's horse, Casey, living with us, (27yrs. old), on the property. He and she were an amazing pair at the reining/cutting horse events. Great to hear everyone's growing old together!

 

[roxynoodle]

I had a lot of pictures of him on my old computer. I will have to add some to this computer and post one. I can't take a new one today as they are locked up tightly in the barn. We are having winds up to 60mph right now. I already had the power go out for a couple of hours this morning. The New Year is coming in with a bang! He doesn't mind rain or snow at all, but horses tend to hate high winds. Plus sometimes you do get flying debris on a day like this.

 

[PiperAndRiosMommy]

Happy belated birthday to Malone. I too, have an OTTB. He is 9. But I work with almost 120 OTTB's.

 

[usamimi]

Happy Birthday Malone! The best horse i've ever known was a racing thoroughbred rescue.

 

[roxynoodle]

He thanks everyone very much for all the birthday wishes!

 

[triordan]

Happy birthday! I have a 35 yr old currently in my barn, a big old Irish sport horse named Jam!

 

[roxynoodle]

That's awesome! I had an Appaloosa live to be 30 and then die a few days after her birthday. I had just sent a picture and letter to the Appaloosa Horse Club to let them know she was still alive. They destroy their registration upon their 30th birthday if they don't hear from the owner. Then I had to contact them again to let them know she passed away.