threeringedmoon

Originally published at Five Acres with a View. You can comment here or there.

Hap is officially 20 years old today, since Thoroughbreds’ birthdays are considered to be January 1st of the year they were born. (He was actually foaled in May 1985.) I rode him yesterday, and he sure didn’t feel like an old horse after we jumped a little cross rail and in his enthusiasm he decided to run away on the backside. I had to use a pulley rein for the first time in a long while: not a very elegant solution, but it works. Most of the time. The rest of the session he was lovely: after twelve years together we have each other pretty well trained.

I was riding during a lesson being taught by my trainer. I was happy that I was able to keep up much better with the others than I expected, so I am gradually getting back into shape.

Considering the other horses the same way, Rags is also 20 today and Lily is eight. Smoke, born in 1977, is an increasingly creaky 28 years old.