Hunting After 50

[xeroxchick]

This might sound ridiculous, but I am about to turn 50 and am starting to think about my long term plan. Do any of you have one for hunting?

I know so many people hunt into their seventies, but not a lot of women. Sure, there are eighty year olds who hunt, but realistically, I can’t plan on that. I hunted last horse eleven seasons but he is just hilltopping now.
My newer hunt horse is six so I hope to get another twelve or more years out of him, knock wood, but wonder how it would be to “make” a hunt horse when I am in my mid sixties.
I cannot afford $20,000 horses! Have some help now, but that changes every few years or so.
How does the regular person keep up and keep hunting without getting hurt? Or exhausted?

Just thought it might be a good topic and would love to hear any thoughts, fears, plans, experiences, etc.
?
Thanks

[Beverley]

Well, I just celebrated my diamond jubilee:) and have no plans to quit hunting or riding. Admittedly I hunt far less now due to living in Utah, but hey, it’s like riding a bicycle. When last I hunted in Virginia, September 2010, went for a day of cubhunting on a borrowed horse, ended up whipping in, popped a coop or two for the first time in a while, no worries.

But, I suppose I should add, I’m crazy.

The two ‘made’ hunters that moved to Utah with me are sadly long gone, but my now 9 YO appendix has hunted 20 or so times out west here. No, he doesn’t jump, or I haven’t schooled him to jump- his front end is ugly enough that it just wouldn’t hold up to the pounding- but for the occasional hunting foray, he has no trouble popping over sagebrush or ditches, and in paneled country (rare out here) there are ways to get around. And I will add, as I age, no worries with him, he isn’t a dead head but would safely pack pretty much anybody in our very rugged Rocky Mountain terrain.

My little 7 yo mare, just over 14h, has not hunted yet but is a lovely little jumper given the limited schooling she’s had, not more than 2’6" but she Just Doesn’t Care. So when the 16h gelding looks too tall, I have my little ol’ lady’s horse lined up. So I think I’m good to go, for a while.

Keeping both fit and riding fit is important. I should do better. But I do ride at least 3-4 days a week (more in summer, less in winter) and the terrain I routinely negotiate on trail rides is pretty darned trappy, so neither I nor horses get out of practice.

But just now my only problems are, distance to meets makes hunting not very often (6 hours minimum, one way), and, well, my hunting clothes are given to shrinking in the closet owing to lack of use. Very evil, that process.

So here is my long term plan, and I freely admit I plagiarize (with some tweaks) from an FOL post years ago:

I picture myself, somewhere between 98 and 108, galloping along in Piedmont’s Friday country on a nice thoroughbred, hounds in full cry and you could throw a blanket over them, about 5 miles into the run, having galloped a half dozen stone walls out of stride, and suddenly complete and total cardiac arrest, and I fall to the ground, deader than a doornail.

Sadly, my boyfriend will be so horribly upset, he’ll just have to drop out of college for the remainder of the semester to recover.

[ellebeaux]

Well, I turn 50 next year and haven’t foxhunted yet but I will. Especially if I end my days exactly as Beverly describes!!!

[xeroxchick]

Love it.

Five hours is a long drive. i envy my cousin who goes ten or twenty minutes down the road. We drive three 1/2 to the best hunting.

So important to ride frequently, lately if I skip a week it really feels like it.

The thing is, I know fabulous horsewomen in their seventies who ride these HUGE hot dressage horses. I look at that and think it would be easier to give them a good gallop over open land than keep all that contained and precise in a dressage arena.
So sane hunting, is it?
Enjoy your horse and follow the hounds?

[Hunter_s_Rest]

Melvin Poe begins hunting next week, carrying the horn and hunting his own hounds and riding a new horse.
He’s 93.
: )
You just … do it.
Use it. Or lose it.

[SnicklefritzG]

He’s 93??? Amazing.

[SLW]

Last week at our first mounted hound exercises one of our Hilltop Fieldmasters was there and just as excited as ever to be getting ready for the season. We chatted for awhile as she saddled up her Clydesdale then mounted her 82 year old self onto his back.

I’m over 50 and my long term plan to always have a horse I trust if I want to continue to hunt. This is my mare’s second season to hunt and she started out punky last week during exercises. So it meant I had to leave my Fieldmaster buddy above and take the punky mare back into the “walk only” group. There is something humbling about having a 82 year old ride away from you at a canter…sigh. I wanna be just like her!

[Badger]

We all wants to just like her, SLW. And please tell her I said hi. She was very nurturing to me when I was new to hunting two decades ago and helped make a lifetime hunter out of this once newby.

[xeroxchick]

That is outstanding. I would love to be hunting at 82 and hope I can. From what I have seen of 93 and 82 year olds I highly doubt it. I want to have a couple of alternate, realistic plans for enjoying hunting as well!

[Hunter_s_Rest]

Do. Or do not.
There is no try.
If you think you can’t/won’t, then you just might be right.
Plan to do it. Then, do it. : )
(feeling particularly chipper this late summer cool dew-y morning in Virginia hunt country. Heard a fox screaming outside my (open) window last night.)

[FitToBeTied]

I’m in the post-50 crowd as well. I’ve got a young OTTB that is going into his 4th hunt season and should carry me into my 60’s. While I’ve always enjoyed working with younger horses and bringing along my own hunt horses, I think the next one will be a little more made.

I aspire to be like some of the older members I see in the hunt field still flying along in the first flight and never bypassing a jump. As long as I am physically able, I will hunt.

[jawa]

Hunter’s Rest,

Mr. Fox was just letting you know that he has plans for a fun COTH hunt on Sept 15th!!!

I went to a Bedford County Hunter Pace many years ago and watched a man who was in his late 80’s have some help to mount his very well behaved TB. He walked off to the start line for a 2 mile over timber race. The flag went down, the horses were off, and he was at the front of the pack the ENTIRE race. He won with ROOM to spare. They helped him off his horse and he looked like he was still mounted by the shape he was in. At that instant, I knew I wanted to continue to ride until the end.

I’m 42, so not there yet, but I have to old horses (one retired, the other still has a season or two left). I’ll be looking to bring along a youngn’ here soon and hope that I’ll have some umph left to bring along another youngn’ in 10-15 years to have the horse to carry me into the sunset as it were.

As Hunter’s Rest says, if you plan for it, you can do it.

[SLW]

[QUOTE=Badger;6511366]
We all wants to just like her, SLW. And please tell her I said hi. She was very nurturing to me when I was new to hunting two decades ago and helped make a lifetime hunter out of this once newby.[/QUOTE]

I will see her this morning and pass along your hello. Last week as she and I visited she said “I still get excited about the new season started. Is that silly?” Way neat in my book.

[lesson_junkie]

I’m 57. I’m enjoying hunting more now than when I first went at age 16.

To answer xeroxchick’s question, I am religious about staying under instruction with an excellent instructor with a long background of hunting. Her main business is show hunters, but she has a big handful of clients who do both. I trust her to help make sure I am safe, riding well, and am properly mounted. She hunts as often as her schedule allows, too.

I think the discipline of ringwork-practicing two point, a little work without stirrups, schooling transitions, as well as riding out on trails keeps my seat strong, and my horse responsive and alert.

It’s worked so far…and I’ll hunt as long as I can sit up.

[WildBlue]

We have quite a few older members, some going second flight into their 70s and 80s. As others have mentioned, the ones going the best ride very frequently and work with a trainer. They have also reached the point of buying a horse that is kind and has hunted a bit and paying the trainer (or younger rider) to help keep the horse going well, rather than starting a prospect completely from scratch.

[Foxtrot_s]

You know what they say - “use it or lose it”. Or - “I’d rather wear out than rust out”.

Apart from osteoporosis which is a real danger for older women, with the right horse and knowing the territory, take the above stories as inspiration!

My dearest friend hunted until she was 73, before cancer took her

Away with you! to negative thoughts.

You are hunting regularly. You are riding fit - there is no expiration date.

[SLW]

[QUOTE=Badger;6511366]
We all wants to just like her, SLW. And please tell her I said hi. She was very nurturing to me when I was new to hunting two decades ago and helped make a lifetime hunter out of this once newby.[/QUOTE]

She sends her very best and apologizes for not replying to FB stuff. She doesn’t use that network much.

[Willesdon]

I don’t hunt regularly so I prepare by not only riding at least 3 times a week but also by going swimming a fair bit to improve the cardio-vascular thingy. I find as I get older, riding requires less effort because I’m more relaxed, less competitive, don’t give a toss about what other people think and I just have fun. So the swimming is enough to help fitness. Oh, and a nice horse who also enjoys itself is important.

My father stopped hunting at 73. I’m going to be just like him.

[Major_Mark]

Well… I’m 54, and can only get out a few times a season with Bull Run because of all my business travel, but I do keep in shape by riding my bike to work during spring/summer/fall. It’s a 34 mile round trip. So when I hunt, I keep up. With Bull Run I’m mostly second field since I ride different horses each time, and it’s actually quite nice to relax and enjoy the countryside.

When I hunt in England, there is no second field, so I’m working hard and staying up front. Oddly, I find myself usually one of the last to go in.

The bike riding through Philadelphia is actually much like foxhunting. Dangerous traffic always trying to kill you, exhilarating jumps over curbs, potholes, etc. Constantly shucking and jiving, moving and grooving as you dodge traffic, people, obstructions, constantly thinking ahead, planning your moves…

When I retire in the spring and move to my soon-to-be- constructed New Hampshire hobby farm I’ll have my own horses again and hunt with Guildford and North Country Hounds til I drop dead. That’s the plan and I’m sticking to it.

[JSwan]

@Major Mark;6512394

That’s the plan and I’m sticking to it.

Mine too.

I don’t care if someone has to winch me onto a decrepit shetland pony when I’m 98 and sucking my food through a straw.

The ironweed weed is blooming, the sound of cicadas is giving way to the sound of crickets, the mornings are cooler, the dew is on the grass… that means it’s time for cubbing!!!

And don’t forget folks - another way to enjoy hunting with hounds is to hunt with a footpack. Big fun.