So tonight what I hope to cover is what can you do as the owner of a senior horse to compensate
for these changes, to make life better for them, to maybe get a few more performances
out of them, before they have to be retired. So, we talked before about how the older horse
loses their cardio-pulmonary capacity, they have reduced exercise tolerance. So it’s
really important, if you are going to keep working them, that you have this in the back
of your mind, and that exercise, it can be turnout or can be controlled exercise, it
can be you riding or lunging or driving or hand-walking or walking up and down hills,
walking over a cavalletti, whatever you want to do. I am not a huge fan of just turnout,
because for the most part, horses don’t go out and exercise themselves. I mean especially
the ones that need to - easy keepers, and the ones with insulin resistance, they stand
still. So if you can, even if your older horse is retired, have some sort of controlled exercise
program, so that they are in work. You will find that your supplementation, especially
your fat and amino acids, will work better if they are also in work. If you are encouraging
them by movement to build muscle and then providing the building blocks of muscle, you
will get a better response.
Your warm-ups have to be longer and slower, your cool downs longer and slower. I would
encourage you, if you want to keep this horse in work, avoid time off. I am not a big fan
of the taking the winter off business for any age, because the cardiovascular fitness,
the strength or the muscle, and the flexibility, all those decrease at different times, when
you lay a horse completely off. And so, when you bring them back in the spring when they
are older, it takes longer and longer and longer. So I don’t recommend letting the
horse, the older horse, down at all. Keep them in work.
Don’t forget about saddle fit, because as your horse's top line is changing, the saddle
is going to fit differently. I am not saying you have to get a new saddle, but maybe you
have to pad it differently or something, just keep that in mind, okay?
As horses age, they begin to lay down less, and I know my thoroughbred does not lay down
as well, because he just cannot bend his front legs, and he also doesn’t have the strength
anymore to push up off his back legs and get up. So keep that in mind, and if they don’t
lay down they cannot sleep well. So that whole business about horses sleeping standing up,
yeah they have a locking mechanism in both their back and their front legs, but they
do not go into REM sleep standing up.
Warm weather and cold weather, older horses begin to lose the ability to thermoregulate,
or maintain their own core temperature, so you have to do it for them. So when it’s
cold, you better be on them with the blankets, and when its warm, there should be fans available.
And you might have to hose them, too. And if they are not shedding out well, then you
might have to clip them. So think of all the things that you can affect as the owner when
the weather is hard on them, when it is 100 degrees, when it is 0 degrees.
Older horses tend to have a lower blood volume, meaning they can easily get dehydrated. So,
you might want to consider putting them on an electrolyte, or at least a salt. What I
do with mine is I use an electrolyte during the summer when there might be some sweating
and some mineral loss, and then I do a salt during the winter to make sure he keeps drinking
and keeps hydrated. And what I am trying to avoid is an impaction colic.
As the horse ages, he may have been the herd boss, and he is moving down that rung, horse
by horse, as he gets older, because horses are picking, they are challenging him, and
they are picking fights and they are winning and then he moves down. So, now my old horse
he used to be king of the hill is now low man on the totem pole and I recognize that
and they make sure, what happens with my horse is he eats really, really slow, like each
little kernel of grain, oh it's frustrating. So, what we do is we keep him in the barn
about an hour longer than everyone else and then he gets to eat in privacy, in peace and
quiet alone, there is no competition. So by herd status, I mean you better make sure depending
on your feeding system that you are allowing this older horse time and peace to finish
his own meal, because if he’s grabbing a bite there and having to run, he’s burning
more calories than he is getting from the food. So just be aware of the dynamics in
the herd.