Retiring Our Competitors: Life of Leisure, o not?
By Patti Schofler
ing and competing together. You’ve tended to every blip in his body, probably faced a variety of health issues, and you know every physical and mental quirk of his being. Now either an in- jury or advancing age appears to keep him from jumping fences, cantering pirouettes or gallop- ing cross country hills and valleys. You’ve made the decision that his future is in retirement. What does that mean? Retire from competition? Retire
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from an active life integrated with humans? Finding a new, easier job? With you or without you? This year I’ve been ask- ing all those questions as I face this conundrum with my own horse. Immediately pasture turnout comes to many minds as the
obvious solution, but when you really look at the great big field, even that raises questions. Finding other fitting options takes some creativity, but they are out there. Your horse’s age, soundness, temperament and life experiences are important factors when considering alternatives to just becoming a “pasture ornament.”
BLISSFUL PASTURES I began contemplating retirement when an injury made it clear that my own dressage horse couldn’t continue the climb
Right: Retirement living at Paradise Acres 32 September/October 2013
or five, ten or maybe even fifteen years, you and your sport horse have enjoyed and endured the ups and downs of train-
to Prix St. Georges; twice I had visions of wearing the tailcoat when he came up disap- pointingly injured. So I steeled myself with a plan to heal him to ‘pasture soundness’ and then turn him out in a friend’s 60-acre pasture with ten other horses. He could do it, I said to myself. After all, horses are herd animals designed to live outside in the elements. At home he’s been out in pasture with two donkeys during the good weather days. Of course, at night and in bad weather, he lounged around in an oversized stall and a paddock of com- pacted road base (no mud) large enough to canter in. Hardly the life of a feral horse. As I stared at the retirement pasture the questions
Top: Two horses in retirement at Paradise Acres in California. Above: The author’s horse Novio enthusias- tically enjoying his turn out.
flooded in. Is 18 too young for this destination? How will he handle bad weather? How will I handle having him out there in bad weather? My friend with the pasture bumped up against these same questions when the horse she imported from Germa- ny as a three-year-old was at 22 ready to retire. She brought him up to become a national champion Grand Prix dressage horse, raising him in a stall and paddock. With great trepida- tion she unbuckled the halter to turn him out in her pasture.
Courtesy Paradise Acres
Courtesy Paradise Acres
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