Like humans, horses are living longer than ever. Typically, older horses will live into their twenties and often into their thirties. It’s natural to worry about your horse’s health into the golden years. Studies report that 70 percent of horses aged 20 years or older have some type of health issue requiring modifications in management practices and veterinary care. Let’s examine the six key issues your older horse might face, and tips to help you keep your horse feeling comfortable during those senior years.

4 Key Principles - As the shorter, colder winter months settle in, brief but purposeful groundwork sessions become critical for a horse’s physiology. Granted, fitness-based groundwork will not keep a horse at peak performance level, but it will prevent total erosion of neuromuscular and metabolic fitness during times of abbreviated schedules.

Mud fever—also called greasy heel, scratches, or pastern dermatitis—is a skin disorder that commonly affects the lower legs of horses, especially around the heels and pasterns. It occurs most often in the wet seasons of fall, winter, and early spring, when horses spend long hours in muddy conditions that allow bacteria and fungi to multiply.

In January 2003, Penny Woodworth, who lives on Vancouver Island, BC, was taking a jumping lesson. “Smallish jumps, nothing exciting. My long-time error is looking down, which I did that day. My horse stopped, and I tumbled off. Not a bad fall at all, except that I landed with one butt-cheek on the ground pole. I got up and carried on, but I was crooked and stayed that way. After a week or so, still riding crooked and feeling shooting pains down my right leg, I went for physiotherapy. I had dislocated my sacroiliac (SI) joint. Regular physio treatments and exercises finally got it to stay in place and I continued riding.