Keep Old Horses Healthy

"How do we tell when a horse is aged?" asked Nancy Loving, DVM, who owns Loving Equine Clinic in Boulder, Colo., at the recent Healthy Horses Workshop for horse owners (held Dec. 2 in San Antonio, Texas, in conjunction with the 52nd annual American Association of Equine Practitioners Convention). "Most people think a horse is old once he’s over 20 years old. But we have to think of physiological age, not just chronological age. For example, some people are old and frail at 70, while some are still playing tennis at 70.

"As the years go by, veterinarians see more and more older horses," she said. "I just lost a horse in my practice that was 42. The record is 62 years old (uncorroborated), and I have seen one at 52; horses in the mid-30s are very common."

Loving said the National Animal Health Monitoring System’s 1998 equine study found that 30% of U.S. horses were over age 11, and 8% were over age 20. In a country with more than nine million horses, that’s a lot of old horses, many of which have special health care needs. These special needs were the focus of her presentation to the 303 horse owners in attendance