You’ve loved horses all your life, maybe you did a bit of horseback riding as a teenager, and maybe you had the chance to rekindle your love of horses later in life. Then the day came in his late 50’s that he had the opportunity to buy his first horse. Are you too old to face this beautiful, majestic and powerful animal?
In my opinion you are not, I say this because I moved to the country at 57 and bought my first horse at 58. What did I take into account when choosing my horse? First I thought about what I was physically capable of doing, with that in mind I thought I wouldn’t want a horse over 15hh, anything bigger than that makes for a bigger fall and breaks bones.
My second consideration was the age and temperament of the horses, a good old bombproof horse that I could ride again. Then there is the race. I didn’t care about the breed, simply because as a teenager I rode many different breeds, and how calm a horse is is more about how they are trained and treated, not the breed.
I was thinking Quarter horse or Standardbred, I rented a Standardbred in my late 30’s and he was very calm but could be very stubborn. One breed I never considered was a Thoroughbred, I thought this breed might be way over my head and from what I had seen watching horse racing my thinking was too nervous for me.
After taking all of the above into consideration, I started looking for the horse of my dreams and I found it. It didn’t take long for me to fall in love with a horse I found in an ad on Facebook. This is where I started to question my sanity, this horse is 16.1hh 11 years old Thoroughbred off the track, he hadn’t been ridden since his racing days and I didn’t even know if he was healthy.
The truth is that I did not care, I fell in love with the horse in the ad and I fell even more in love when I met him. Yes, so he is a thoroughbred, he needs re-education and as a pleasure horse he is green, but so am I. He used to ride fighting horses but he was 16 not 58… so I wonder “What were you thinking?” My answer is that I wasn’t thinking, I just knew that this guy was for me.
So now the next question is am I too young and too old to take on this mammoth task in order for my horse to be strong enough to work and eventually ride? If I didn’t have any experience with horses, it might be too big a task for me. If there were no internet, then again, it may be too big a task for me. The thing is, I believe that I can do this and I love and trust my son and I know that he loves and trusts me.
Another thing to consider is fitness, I’m not too fit, but to start the groundwork I need to improve my fitness that I’m working on right now. Age is just a number, if you have the passion, love and commitment nothing is impossible. Learn to read and listen to your horse and always make safety a priority, horses are large and powerful animals and are capable of causing serious harm to us, even if it is accidental.