World’s oldest horse dies

by Hailey Trealout

Shayne, a liver chestnut Irish Draught cross thoroughbred was believed to be the oldest horse in the world.

Shayne was euthanized at the age of 51 after he collapsed and was unable to stand with the help of employees. After his retirement from his private home seven years ago, Shayne was sent to the Remus Memorial Horse Sanctuary in Essex, United Kingdom. The Remus Memorial Horse Sanctuary was formed in 1983, providing an environment for older horses, donkeys and other large farm animals.

Sue Burton is the founder of the sanctuary. She said she does a lot of holistic work with her animals including therapeutic techniques such as reiki, shiatsu, bach flower remedies, natural selection herbs and aromatherapy among other treatments. She also tries to enrich their environment as much as possible to make their lives more interesting.

“Like most old horses he had a little bit of arthritis and dentition problems so we maintained his body weight by feeding high calorific high fibre food 4-6 times a day,” said Burton. “He was well right up to the day of his death. We are finding that helping the animals up in the mornings is becoming part of day to day care, but once they are up for the day they are fine. Eventually, like Shayne there will come a day when they can’t get up and that is the time to let them go with some dignity.”

According the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food, the average age of a horse is between 25 and 33 years. Dr. Robert Fetherston is a veterinarian who works at the Town and Country Animal Clinic in LaSalle, Ont. He said a horse living to its 30s and 40s is an unusual blessing.

“Everybody looks to a scale of how many years to every average human year horses have,” said Fetherston. “It’s pretty tough to do it because it all depends on the breed, the physical size. The larger the horse, the shorter the life expectancy. So small horse breeds live longer than draft horse breeds. There is no one year equals seven, like with dogs, some of the small breeds live for a long time, and these are ones that are getting close to pony size, or 40 inches high. I’ve never had a horse in its 40s, so to hear of a horse making it to 51 is very exceptional.”

In 2004, a Welsh/Arabian horse named Badger went for the title of oldest horse but died at 51. Previous to Shayne and Badger, the title was held by “Old Billy” who lived in Lancashire, U.K. and died at 62 in 1822.