I consider myself pretty lucky to live and work in the region I do. Central Kentucky is one of the largest–if not the largest–Thoroughbred nurseries in the world, and it’s hard to drive anywhere (with the sole exception of downtown Lexington) without running into stallions, broodmares, and/or babies. Just driving the seven miles from our office to my boarding barn, I pass three major breeding operations and several smaller ones with fields full of leggy foals playing, broodmares ready to pop, or weanlings and yearlings growing up.

Especially during the late summer and fall, once the mares have escaped from their foals and are spending days basking in the sun, I often notice that some individuals look decidedly older than their pasture mates. It’s easy to pick out a slightly sway backed mare jogging with an arthritic gait a few steps behind her younger counterparts, or a graying mare “politely suggesting” to a younger-looking mare that she’d better move unless she wants a chunk taken out of her haunches.