2008 Love Your Horse Senior Horse Photo Contest Winners

After going through the trials of owning a couple horses that just were not suited to his personality, my husband finally found a great trail horse. We had searched an entire summer, coming up disappointed on many levels. Mostly we found poorly cared-for horses that were over-priced and under-nourished. Our farrier told us that a “ranch” where we used rent horses sold off some horses every fall for reasonable prices and that we could probably find a good horse there.

In October of 1999, we made the trip to the ranch and brought home Skipper. We were assured that if we didn’t like him or if he didn’t pass a vet-check, we could return him and they would give us another horse. Well, he’d been trail-ridden that entire summer (and how many before that, who knows). He had good feet, was sound and appeared healthy. We decided to keep him.

The following spring I took him to an equine dentist and was told that he was probably 30 years old and had no functional teeth!! Imagine our surprise to find this out. No matter. He was ours, we loved him and he wasn’t going anywhere. We put him on a senior feed and alfalfa cubes soaked in water to help with his roughage (it was beginning to be a little difficult for him to chew hay efficiently). He grew fat and shiny and dappled and was a great trail horse for 4 years before we retired him.

He traveled to our hunting camp for trail rides in the Allegheny National Forest. We rode him, along with his good buddy CJ, on trails around our home. He very quickly established himself as “the boss” – just pinning his ears and giving another horse “the look” was all it took to keep the “new” horse in line. He is a horse that would rather be loved on than ridden and enjoys to the maximum grooming or hugs or whatever attention you give him.

There are currently 4 horses in our barn and Skipper, at age 37, is still the boss. His teeth are all but gone but he’s still shiny and healthy and has nice, hard feet. We blanket him now in the cold weather but he always enjoys going out to pasture, especially if a nap in the sun is in store.

Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that we would own 4 horses (we also have a 17-year-old Appaloosa gelding and a 12-year-old half-Arabian mare). Eventually we will lose our good, old buddies but until that day comes, they will have a safe, loving home with us and we will always have our fond memories of them and what they taught us and what they gave back to us.