The finest vintages

Age, wisdom and experience go hand-in-hand. Tessa Waugh tracks down some venerable old salts who are thriving in the twilight years, and giving their riders both confidence and plenty of fun times

- Tessa Waugh

TO some people veteran horses are like old cars – expensive to keep and liable to break down at any moment. But nowadays more and more horses are enjoying active lives well into their twenties and beyond. Ponies even longer. Far from generating a tonne of vet’s bills and little else, veteran horses are viewed as the gift that keeps on giving.

Director of the Hunting Office Alice Bowden is a case in point. Having retired her hunter, Spike, when he was about 17, she had no choice but to bring him back into work when her new horse went lame.

“Spike had missed two seasons,” she says. “It was November and he was big and hairy in the field. I went and put a headcollar on him and told him, ‘We’re going hunting’.”

That was three seasons ago and they haven’t looked back. There are, however, a few concessions to make for an older horse. Spike’s working year begins on 1 July: “We do two months of walking and we carry on walking when I exercise him through the season,” explains Alice.

Out hunting with the Beaufort, she is more careful than she would be on a younger model.

“I’d rather ride along a road than a rough verge,” she says. “Always slow up at gateways. If he’s tired, I go home. I have lots of days when I stay out until the end, but I never finish with him feeling knackered.”