Happy Horses Birthday

It is likely that all over your social media your horsey friends or others would have posted today “Happy Horses Birthday”, if this concept still confuses you, allow me to explain.

Just like humans horses do actually have a birthday more commonly referred to as a “foaling date”, this is the day they are actually born. However, due the varying dates that horses can be born it can be quite a task to find races to place horses in based on this date. Therefore, in the Southern Hemisphere all the horses (regardless of breed) turn another year older on August 1st. For horses in the Northern Hemisphere, they need to wait until January 1st.

By having the one universal day in which all horses tick over that extra year,  it becomes easier for trainers to place horses into races that may have age restrictions.

Common questions I am asked is “how old is a horse in human years?” “Is is the same as dog years?”

Unlike dogs where the equivalent is for 1 human year = 7 dog years, to work out how old your horse is in “human” years the general ruling is as below:

Horse Age	Stage of Life	Human Age	Stage of Life
1	Foal, Weanling, Yearling	6.5	Infancy, Babyhood, Toddlerhood, Preschooler
2	Two-Year-Old	13	Adolescence / Puberty,
3	Three Year Old	18	Teenager
4	Four Year Old	20.5	Young Adult
5	Physical Maturity	24.5	Adulthood
7		28
10		35.5
13	Middle Aged	43.5	Middle Aged
17		53
20	Senior	60	Senior
24		70.5
27		78	25%-/+ five years is an average lifespan.
30	Extreme Old Age	85.5
33		93
36		100.5