Ridecamp: Re: [RC] The Aging Equine Athlete!

Hi All,

My Arab gelding started his trail career when we were living in Kansas competing against the horse (Elmer Bandit) mentioned in the Horse and Rider article.  They were both 6 at the time.  The CTR's in Kansas are 4 mph events more like the judged pleasure rides we have here in the East where we moved.  I thought the ECTRA rides at 6-7 mph were way too fast so just did pleasure for many years!  Then when my guy turned 15 a friend persuaded us to try ECTRA and we were hooked.  We did our first 3 day 100 at 16 and our last at 24.  We accumulated a 1000 ECTRA miles during that period.

Then we "retired" to driving and did a few more competitive miles and then competed in several Combined Driving Events (including Gladstone when he was 25) where our trail conditioning helped a lot.

Now my horse is 30 years old and we have been "practicing" for a driving demonstration we have been asked to participate in this weekend and he is just as gung ho to go now as he was at 4 when we first started and with no sign of arthritis and a plump grass fed body and shiny coat (his only problem is aged teeth) I expect he will continue to keep on truckin' down the trail for a few more years to come.

Jan and Rivo in finally summertime CT