Maybe I’m weird, but for me, keeping and caring for horses in the backyard is the point. It’s my exercise, my therapy, my art, my aesthetic. I prize that over riding, which is why every winter I think about boarding with an indoor and conclude…nah. I’ll take the muck and the frozen bits and the wild fuzzy horses. What else would I do with myself, if I wasn’t walking out to the barn 500 times a day? 
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While I have two, and “can afford it”, I’m sure that same money going towards my retirement is a much wiser choice.
I do not plan on fully retiring any horse after my Old Man unless I have my own property. I will sell them once they get good and trained, for someone else to enjoy.
Honestly, I think every day about what it would feel like to get out completely, or to at least reduce it to a shareboard situation on one horse. The costs of everything are ridiculous right now.
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The discussion on when euthanasia is appropriate is interesting to me.
As some posters may recall, I have an elderly TB that I acquired as a companion for my riding horse two years ago. Said TB had been retired for 3 yrs prior to me getting him and had been struggling with lameness issues for 10 yrs prior to me obtaining him. I’ve spent a boatload of cash on said TB trying to sort his lameness issues. If any of this horse’s previous owners had spent the same boatload of cash oh I don’t know 10 yrs ago the horse would be in far better shape now. But they didn’t. Even though the care would have been cheaper 5 or 10 yrs ago. Even though his most recent owner has far more income than I ever will. I know these things as facts. Can you tell I’m bitter? I’m not bitter that I’m spending the money. I’m bitter the horse has been low key suffering for 10 years. I’m bitter that that for some reason nobody before decided it was worth giving the poor horse daily pain meds so he could be comfortable. I’m bitter his flesh and hooves were allowed to waste away in “retirement”. I’m bitter that society pressured these owners into “stepping the horse down” and “retiring” him, instead of the euthanasia that the vet recommended when it was clear they wouldn’t or couldn’t continue medical treatment 10 effing years ago.
I’m grateful that the horse came to me in the end so that I can protect him. He will live pain free or he will die here in my care. But at what point do I cease his medical treatment and divert those funds into a healthier and less expensive horse? One that might have a more useful occupation. I refuse to shame owners that elect euthanasia in favor of using the funds needed to care for a compromised animal in favor of one that has a more “useful” future.
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with the increase in costs I find people are using something low maintenance like a donkey or getting a light use/husband horse type - costs as much to keep a “useless but healthy” horse as one that is useful so unless you find someone who has a previous attachment to the useless one companion homes are a rare commodity and often when you do find one they aren’t going to good homes - once the patting oneself on the back on facebook for saving a horse looses it’s novelty the care tends to drop off.
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When I was a kid and went to college keeping my horse (late teen AQHA) was something my parents wanted to avoid if possible. My dad had an employee at the time that had a barn and pastures at home that was looking for a horse that her kids could putz around on and she could take on an occasional trail ride. We just gave her to them since we knew them. I had ZERO clue how lucky I was she went to this woman’s home; she kept her until she died somewhere between 30 and 35 and had a bracelet made for me with some tail hair. They had her longer than I did!
Knowing what I know now, I would have felt guilty if we sold her and never heard of her wellbeing again. If I KNEW a horse was going to a place like she landed, I would maybe consider it circumstances depending, but those situations seem few and far between these days. And it’s probably fair to say we didn’t know at the time we gave her to them, how well she actually would have been taken care of.
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@Moderator_1 - this was me posting and not the other user. Must be a glitch with the update?
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Reposting under my user name.
When I was a kid and went to college keeping my horse (late teen AQHA) was something my parents wanted to avoid if possible. My dad had an employee at the time that had a barn and pastures at home that was looking for a horse that her kids could putz around on and she could take on an occasional trail ride. We just gave her to them since we knew them. I had ZERO clue how lucky I was she went to this woman’s home; she kept her until she died somewhere between 30 and 35 and had a bracelet made for me with some tail hair. They had her longer than I did!
Knowing what I know now, I would have felt guilty if we sold her and never heard of her wellbeing again. If I KNEW a horse was going to a place like she landed, I would maybe consider it circumstances depending, but those situations seem few and far between these days. And it’s probably fair to say we didn’t know at the time we gave her to them, how well she actually would have been taken care of.
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GOOD ones? No, few and far between. Chances are good that the person you give your companion horse to will dump it at auction to make a couple bucks, starve it to death, or ride it into the ground even though you told them it wasn’t sound to ride (and then dump it at auction). Or turn around and sell it. I’ve given away a few horses over the years, a few were sound and rideable - two ended up dumped for cash at dirty kill buyer auctions, two were re-sold to who knows where, and exactly ONE ended up in a lovely, perfect home that took amazing care of him until he died of natural causes.
The cost of horsekeeping gets more expensive by the day, it seems. $700 alfalfa this month. Last month it was a $3600 vet bill. I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t do horses, but I sure cringe when I (rarely) add up the cost of them.
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This is such a good illustration how retirement is something we do for us. It makes us feel good. Ten years of minimal retirement care obviously wasn’t what was best for the horse.
When you’re ready, @lenapesadie, there’s nothing wrong with giving this guy a kind end. You’ve done a nice thing for him, making his life better. 
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I appreciate your support. We are working our way through the available treatment options (vet and farriery work) and keeping the horse comfortable with medication. I believe that I will try all the things, but if none are successful I have his final resting place under an ancient oak tree prepared.
To your point about “retirement” care, upon horsie’s first appointment with my vet it was noted that inviting the farrier out more often would have been desirable. A horse with navicular and founder doesn’t do too well on a 12 wk farrier cycle. Surprise there I’m sure. “But he’s retired!”
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If it plays out that way, then that will be history repeating itself. And if it does, then the era when people other than the very rich could not only ride but own horses will have been very short. Unless it comes around again, some time in the future.
Just reading this thread has reminded me of how much I enjoyed living in the era when you could drive out to a local barn and rent a horse for an hour and have a good ride. It was wonderful to be young in that era, young enough to ride and appreciate having access to good horses at good barns in the city with land to ride on.
Even here in the country where I live now, all that is available are nose-to-tail walking trail rides. There are no lesson barns.
I saw the change coming way back in the 1960s, when the good Atlanta barns were moving out of town, farhter and farther north until I was predicting that before long all the Atlanta horse barns would be in Tennessee. Although of course Tennessee was being changed too!
You are lucky to have access to lesson horses at a good barn. I never thought the days would come when I would not, but they have.
I miss it like I miss water and a good place to swim, my second love.
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This just popped up on my feed, seems pertinent to this conversation:
How many would think the only right answer for this horse is paying retirement board for another 15 years?
Despite (per the post)
“Once bones change we can do little to long term offer respite.”
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This is not just a present-day thing, though. There are LOTS of senior women alive today who were horse-crazy little girls whose parents were unable to fulfill their daughters’ dreams. My parents and I were three of those people, and I grew up in the 1950s and 1960s, in a place where families had yards to play in (and some used those yards to keep a single horse in).
It was a halcyon time, I agree. The lucky kids who had ponies hacked them to Pony Club and other local shows. There were lesson barns and rental barns in the suburbs, so some kids who didn’t have horses of their own could get to lessons close by.
IDK – maybe growing up in that era gave all us horse-crazy little girls the illusion that we could grow up to be horse owners.
I know of 2 for whom this dream came true. 2, out of dozens and scores.
But at least some of us could take riding lessons, and/or rent a horse for an hour on a Saturday. And go to shows as spectators and see “really good” horses of our favorite breed/discipline. And have invisible backyard stables full of invisible horses we could “ride” to our hearts’ content (well not really).
But if at age 70 I were to go out onto the lawn and ride an invisible horse through a dressage test (don’t think I could do XC or SJ these days, even if I could drag the deadfall up from the woods to build the jumps!), I would probably be hauled off to the nearest lunatic asylum (oh, wait, the state got rid of that 50-odd years ago). lol
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Very good point.
I was just thinking about the new barns I see online sometimes, both barn plans for one’s own farm and boarding situations. They look like palaces compared to the very nice barns I knew as a child and young adult.
I never even saw a barn with a paved aisle until I was 30-something.
Do modern-day horses really need barns that look like palaces indoors and out? Could boarding rates be kept down – somewhat – if horses lived in BARNS as they did half a century ago?
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Fancy might be part of it, but I think the real issues are the cost and availability of labor, the increase in commodities and consumables, and the advanced veterinary care that is now possible but at a great cost.
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Do you mean “I can’t imagine putting a show season over a life”? Because the way you worded it says that to you value a show season over a life. And I hope that that is the opposite of what you really meant.
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I agree. I was thinking of the very tiny difference the barn might make in the overall cost. But you’re right – it would probably not make much difference unless the other expenses could be reduced as well. Sadly.
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Yes that’s what I meant ahha THANK YOU for catching that.
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Plus land cost.
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Yes!
