04/29/08 Elmer Bandit

Can you teach old horse new tricks? In the case of one 37 year old gelding I doubt you would want to, he knows everything he needs to know! I'm Jeff Keane, stay tuned and after the break I will tell you about old Elmer Bandit. At thirty-seven years young Elmer Bandit is creating quite a legacy and he is far from the finish line, here is Susan Allen. You might have thought John Henry was old when he retired from racing at age 10, Or maybe Topper, the famous tie-down horse still going strong at 25 until he tragically opened his own gate and wandered onto the highway where he was killed last year. Jeff, Elmer isn't old he's "ancient" but at 37 the gelding is fit and primed for another year of competitive endurance trail riding. Over his long lifetime the grey half-Arab has logged nearly twenty thousand, two hundred miles and needs only four hundred and seventy more under his belt&(.oops I mean girth) to break the all time record. A grueling event, competitive trail riders log around 60 miles over two days, with vets close at hand to pull a horse if health parameters aren't met. Elmer's success, according to one vet is not only that he is extremely sound, but Elmer is a gentleman who is smart and absolutely detests being left behind. Sounds more like what women want in a husband! Smart, sound and a gentleman .. that's a 10 in any gals book! I think old Elmer Bandit is a 10! At age 3 he just competed in his first event of the year last weekend in Topeka Kansas.