Feature January Going strong in the Golden Years
Helping the aging horse remain a fit performer is a worry to most of us. We have the same thoughts.
His show name was B Jay II a Cleveland Bay X. Many a head would turn as this little 14.2 pony would take to the show ground and perform initially in the english X country and show jumping arena then moving onto western. He loved working cattle and doing speed events, even had a mild 'paddy' if his name was not called out to receive a rosette. BJ held the top spot in western classes for many, many years but age started to take its toll and although he still loved it all he started to slow down. BJ was then given a new lease of life by having a, what was then, 4 year old ride him. He would take care of this little cowboy astride him and the two would venture out into the big wide world but we knew he would be in safe hands. BJ would look at us 'parents' with the look of 'don't worry all will be fine'. Steadily he would walk round the pen and we would follow ready to grab should anything happen. It never did. Slowly the aches and pains came and we retired him. How wrong were we. BJ did not want that so we set about doing things different. Senior horses can lose interest in their jobs after years of performing the same old routine so variety was required. We introduced BJ to fence checking, bending and flexing exercises, long trotting to stretch his muscles and keep them supple and track up the bridleways for a mile or so. The aim is to keep him thinking and wondering what we will ask of him next.
As an aged horse, BJ knows every trick in the book and did develop bad habits along the way. A typical bad habit is anticipation. We believe that we should try and correct those bad habits as this would keep him thinking. We found it took 60-90 days to undo a problem and teach him to replace a bad habit with a good one. We looked at improving general horsemanship skills and cues.
We also adjusted the nutrition and working with different feed manufacturers, found a superb feed which suited him to the ground, coupled with a MSM based additive we had a horse with a new lease of life and is still a major part of our family.
When the day comes to fully retire him, he won't owe us a thing. We will owe him for the pleasure he has brought to us as a family and to those he has met along the way.
The boy of four is now ten and breaking in a new horse on his own using natural horsemanship techniques, he still rides BJ and now gets a run for his money! They are both older and wiser! Loving every minute.
