Owners of a particular horse have a little extra reason to celebrate the passing of time each year on New Year’s Day, the popular birth date of North American crossbreeds.
Dead Solid Perfect, now known as “Rush,” won’t turn 15, 20 or even 25 years old. He will be 39 years old and still enjoying life, according to its owner. Even if one calculates his age on the date he is deemed to be May 4, 1983 – he will be 38 years and 242 days on Saturday, making him one of the most senior purebred in North America, if not the oldest.
Shannon Luce, communications director for TJC, said that although The Jockey Club, the industry’s breed registry, tracks many statistics, the oldest Purebred breed is not one. Accurate tracking of such data would be problematic for TJC as death certificates are required from every owner.
So age records are kept through word of mouth, news articles, the internet and that old standby — Guinness World Records. The Guinness Book of World Records declares the oldest purebred dog, Tango Duke (pony in 1935), owned by Carmen J. Koper of Barongarook, Victoria, Australia, to have lived to be 42 years old before his death on this date. January 25, 1978.
The estimated lifespan of a Purebred is 25-28 years old, according to many sources on the internet.
More recently and in this part of the world, Prospect Point has been the subject of news stories more than 5 years ago due to his advanced age, with speculation that he already holds the record as the Old Thoroughbred. most in North America. He finally succumbed at 38 years and 203 days on September 23, 2016. However, now, even he has been surpassed by Rush.
Only other breeds, some of which can outlive purebred breeds, can match the Rush in longevity. “At this point, the stratosphere is very rare,” said its owner, Bridget Eukers.
To put his age in context, Rush was born during the first administration of US President Ronald Reagan, is considered the same year horse as Kentucky Derby (G1) winner Ferdinand, and was 7 years old when Equibase , the official record holder in horse racing, was established . No race rankings are available on Dead Solid Perfect’s pre-produced Equibase profile, although Equibase does list his 1-on-16 record and $5,940 earnings.
He’s outlasted the track on which he began his last career for owner/coach Louis Gallina in 1988: Rockingham Park, closed in 2016.
The Jockey Club allowed another horse to be named Dead Solid Perfect in 2003, which happens occasionally, as the name can be reused if an older horse of the same name more than five years old is lost. eliminated from the race or breeding. However, as Eukers will tell you, there is only one Rush. Even in his advanced age, he still appreciates farm life at the Windsor Hunt stables in Connecticut, Eukers said.
She said his health was very good, with only occasional seasonal allergies and sensitivities to molds.
“He enjoyed the snowfall we had last week; we loved that he rolled in it,” Eukers said in a pre-Christmas interview. “Someone left the gate open, and I’m sorry I didn’t notice yesterday, he noticed before I did and had a nice little time down the hill where he shouldn’t have been.” came. He caused a lot of trouble and had a lot of fun.”
Eukers and Rush have a strong bond; he is her only horse. Her parents bought a purebred dog, then got dress training by another owner when she was young, and she started riding Rush when he was 9 years old (Eukers declined to say her age). , but she is only slightly larger than her horse.)
Competing in the fairground and hunter divisions, the duo qualified for many events, including the 1995 National Children’s Medal Finals and the 1996 Connecticut Junior Medal Finals. He retired after a tendon injury the following year, Eukers said, though they continued to work in costume and then, horseback riding until 2018 when he was 35 years old.
A young Rush shows off his dancing skills
“Yeah, I think back, and it’s like, he was there for high school, for college, you know, for all my other life adventures,” Eukers said. “He is great fixation in everything.”
No longer riding, he now exercises – when he doesn’t go out without knowing his master – with Eukers guiding him up and down a hill on the farm.
“Maintaining that strength and maintaining that flexibility, I think that’s a huge part of his ability to continue living the way he wants to,” she said. “He can still get down and roll. He can still stand up and down.
“But those are things that are very important to me so that he can continue to do those things. And to be honest, most of my life is really built around taking care of him. You know. See, he eats four times a day.”
For the past eight or nine years, Eukers has been feeding him a diet of organic alfalfa pellets, organic barley, and organic oats.
“I have a lot of people who, when I start talking to them about the way he eats, they’ll say, ‘You know, I wish I had eaten this well’ or ‘I need to eat so well’, she said. “I know my vet often comes in in the morning and says, ‘You know this is a pretty good breakfast he’s had.’ I think I can open up a small kitchen and it works pretty well. “
Admittedly, Rush is not as young as before. Classified as a black or brown horse, he maintained a dark coat except for his feet before starting to turn gray around the age of 30. His face is now mostly colored. white, and his neck is there.
Plunge into the Windsor stables
She theorized that Rush, bred by Preston Madden of Kentucky, might have a tendency to go gray with one of the outcrosses in his pedigree being the Great Native Dancer, nicknamed the Gray Ghost. The male of Rush Raise a Cup is classified as a bay, his Kame Yen dam is a black bay or brown mare.
Rush was a $60,000 John Fort coveted purchase from Madden’s consignment at the 1984 Keeneland Sale in September 1984.
Years removed from those auction days, its personality still shines, according to its owner. He shares an oar with another owner’s precious horse, known as “Cowboy,” whom Eukers calls a “young man” at the age of 25. She calls the two “air enemies.” shared”.
“Sometimes they get along really well, and sometimes they don’t get along at all – the latter part is mostly because Cowboy likes to try to steal Rush’s food, and Rush doesn’t like that,” she said. “They got caught in a few small fish because of that kind of thing.”
Understandably, Rush isn’t shy about soothing his weary feet from time to time. He will sit in his rear on everything, sometimes to humorous effect.
“The real standout incident was that someone had left a trash can that was supposed to be for the shed. And it was behind him, and I really didn’t think about it. I was cleaning out his coop. me, he was on the cross,” she recalls. “Then all of a sudden I heard this absolutely horrible crackle, and I rushed out, he was staring behind him, like, ‘Oh, sorry. I yelled.’ And behind him I’m this aluminum trash can, which basically looks like a beer can that someone squeezed his forehead, except it’s a whole aluminum can, and that’s because he tried to sit on it, and that’s it. was a disaster.”
Who can blame the old man?
“I would say having a horse at this age is really tough, but it’s also rewarding,” says Eukers. “It’s nice to see him still enjoying life and that’s really been my goal from the beginning. I want to make sure he’s enjoying life and that he’s happy doing that, and when he doesn’t, I’ll let him go.”
