How Long Do Horses Live?

Some of my favorite horses on my homestead are starting to get quite old.

We’ve been friends for a long time and for some of them I was there when they were born, so it’s never easy watching them slow down and get old.

While they tend to live a lot longer than the average pet like cats or dogs, they still don’t live for half as long as we do.

I wasn’t exactly sure what the average age of a horse was, though, so I decided to look into it as I was reflecting on the time I’ve spent with my horses over the years.

So, how long do horses live?

Domestic horses live, on average, between 20 and 30 years. Many age well beyond this average and many do not reach it at all. There’s a deal of variation, but overall, they generally live two or three decades. Longer than 40 years is vanishingly rare.

So, horses have good, long lives that they can spend by our sides. Horses have been so carefully bred and selected over generation after generation stretching back into the mists of history, so it’s not surprising that they have such good longevity.

So, let’s look at the question in a bit more detail.

How long do domestic horses live?

The figures we’ve looked at so far have been about domestic horses, so let’s break this down a  bit more.

As I’ve said, the average is somewhere between 20 and 30 years, so for the sake of convenience let’s say the average, domestic horse lives to be 25.

There are a couple of caveats to that, since different breeds can live for different lengths of time.

Very different, in fact.

The American Paint Horse has one of the highest average lifespans, at 30-31 years.

Breeds with similar longevity include the Percheron, Appaloosa, and Belgian Draft Horse, all of which live somewhere from 25-30 years on average (again, domesticated.)

Other breeds don’t live as long as that. Friesians, for instance, only live on average up to 18 years.

Mustangs, too, generally only live 15-20 years.

So, the variation isn’t enormous, but which breed you have will certainly make a difference to your horse’s lifespan.

Obviously, different horse breeds have been bred with different goals in mind, and a side effect of that will be lengthening or shortening its lifespan.

Ponies, interestingly, live in general quite a lot longer than typical horses.

Their average lifespan goes well into their 30s.

This is a common phenomenon, where smaller breeds of a species tend to live longer than larger.

The same is often true of dogs. While the reasons are not entirely clear, in the simplest sense, it’s much easier for a small condition to become a very big problem for a larger horse.

So, domestic horses live a long time. But what about the horses in the wild? Do they live as long?

How long do wild horses live?

Predictably, the answer is no, wild horses do not live as long as domestic horses.

There are, as always, outliers to the data, wild horses who live much longer than most of their other fellow horses.

However, in general, wild horses don’t live nearly as long as domestic horses.

On average, a wild horse will live somewhere from 10-16 years.

There are urban legends of wild mustangs that lived to be 40 years old, and similar things probably have occurred.

This is very hard to verify, though, as horses are difficult to age without birth documentation.

Difference between breeds is much less pronounced in wild horses, as you can imagine.

It’s less about the breed and just the conditions under which they live.

They’ll struggle to find all the food that makes the great balanced diet of domestic horses, and they’ll simply live a harder life, always exposed to the elements.

So, who was the oldest horse that ever lived?

There are quite a few contenders and many that certainly reached an extremely impressive age.

How old was the oldest horse?

Probably the most well-known horse that holds the title of one of the longest-lived horses ever is Old Billy.

On record as being 62 years old in his death in 1822, Billy was born in England in 1760 and lived as a barge horse that pulled barges up and down canals.

Close behind at 56 years at the time of his death was a pony named Sugar Puff.

Also born in England in West Sussex, Sugar Puff died in 2007 and was the oldest living horse in the United Kingdom for a long while.

So, as you can see, there are some serious outliers to the average lifespan of 20-30 years!

However, after almost 200 years Old Billy’s record longevity still has not been beaten, so that tells you just how rare such a case is.

Horses don’t usually live that long.

So, there’s a lot of variety, but sometimes the lifespan of a horse can rival our own.

In general, with a domestic horse, you’re looking at a companion who will be with you for at least 20 years and up to as many as 30.

We’ve looked at the most extreme example of how old horses can get, and that gives you more of an idea of the ordinary age.

Expect your horse to be around for a couple of decades at least.