The equestrian riders competing in their 60s and 70s: 'Core strength is so important'

llustration: Kelsea Petersen / The Athletic; Berouz Mehri / Getty Share articleWhen Nick Skelton won individual show jumping gold at the Rio Olympics in 2016, his victory was notable because standing atop a podium at 58 is far from the norm in elite sport. Skelton, who four years earlier had won team jumping gold at London 2012, became the second-oldest British Olympic champion, his feat bettered only by Joshua Millner, who won shooting gold in London in 1908, aged 61. The Briton’s triumph is not the only example of how experience can be advantageous in equestrian, a sport where athletes are still competing into their 70s for the biggest prizes. Mary King was 64 when she retired in March after an incredible 46 seasons at the top of the sport. For King, a three-time Olympic medallist who represented Great Britain in eventing at six Olympics, competing at a high level is as much about skill as physical strength. “You don’t need to be ultra fit compared to some athletes,” the Briton told The Athletic. “In a way, it’s your balance, your core strength that is so important, whereas your actual power is not really needed. You’re working at one with your horse. “When you’re competing, you’re going along as a partnership. That’s why it’s a unique sport where men and women compete on equal terms, and the women are as good as the men, if not better, at times.” Eventing is the triathlon of equestrian sports and generally regarded as the most physically demanding and most dangerous of all five disciplines, the others being show jumping, dressage, vaulting and driving, which you can read more about here. While King said she did extra fitness work with a personal trainer in the build-up to the Beijing Olympics in 2008 to cope with the heat and humidity, she believed experience was key to being successful in eventing, where horse and rider have to navigate a 3- to 3.5-mile track full of water obstacles, steep jumps and deep ditches as wide as a car. “That’s why more mature riders are successful,” King said. “It’s always hard for the younger riders, in their 20s, to break into that top senior level of eventing because you’re gaining knowledge all the time as you ride more and more horses. Every horse is different. They’re like people. They have their own different personalities, characters. And the more horses you ride over a length of time, the more knowledge you get.” It has become more common to see elite athletes competing into their 40s; soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo and LA Lakers’ LeBron James are both 41 and are two of the most well-known examples of the increased longevity of athletes nowadays. At 45, Venus Williams is still playing professional tennis, while last month 40-year-old Allyson Felix, the track star whose 11 Olympic medals are the most of any woman or American in the sport’s history, announced her comeback last month, with the aim being the 2028 L.A. Olympics. But no one would realistically expect them to still be competitive in their 50s, 60s, and even 70s. Japanese dressage rider Hiroshi Hoketsu was 71 when he competed at the 2012 London Games, having made his Olympic debut in Tokyo in 1964. Juan Antonio Jimenez Cobo was 65 when he represented Spain in the dressage in Paris two years ago. And John Whitaker, the Briton who made his name with the legendary Milton in the early 1990s, is still competing with younger riders in show jumping at the age of 70, even after a hernia operation at the start of the year. Australian Mary Hanna continues to compete in dressage at the top level at 71. A veteran of six Olympics (she was also a reserve in Paris in 2024), Hanna shows no signs of slowing down and has not ruled out competing for a spot on the Australian Olympic team for 2028. Should Hanna compete in L.A., she would, at 73, be the oldest ever Olympian. Swedish marksman Oscar Swahn, who was 72 when he took silver at the 1920 Antwerp Olympics in the men’s running deer shooting double shot event, holds the current record. Remarkably, Swahn was 60 when he won his first Olympic gold in 1908. “I’m certainly thinking about it,” Hanna told The Athletic. “We’ll see how it all pans out.” Hanna will be representing Australia at her sixth World Championships in Aachen, Germany in August. She started in eventing and show jumping before making the switch to dressage when she was in her 20s. To read more about the sport’s five disciplines, click here. The grandmother of four, who is also a full-time equestrian coach, has had to make adjustments with age. “I certainly don’t ride as many horses as I used to,” said Hanna, who now trains three Grand Prix-level horses daily. In the past three decades, Hanna has maintained her core strength with a program of floor exercises, pilates and yoga. “Holding your posture, sitting correctly on the horse and being able to use your body in a correct way obviously gets harder as you get older, so I have to concentrate on that a lot,” Hanna said. “I’ve always had to concentrate on my position on the horse, but now I really think about it every day.” Competing at the highest level also has cognitive benefits for her. “I thrive on being under pressure,” she said. “The only thing that’s changed, it’s probably very important to me now to have a horse I’m fully confident in. I don’t want to ride spooky, stupid ones… You don’t need to lose your confidence at this stage of life.” Hanna has also had to overcome serious health challenges, including surgery for a herniated disc in 2005 and skin cancer in 2023. She credited her top horse, a Dutch warmblood called Ivanhoe, with helping her overcome the side effects of chemotherapy and radiotherapy. “My body didn’t handle it very well,” Hanna said. “Ivan was the only one I could ride at that point in time, and he was just amazing. He carried me through that.” Laura Kraut, a 60-year-old American show jumper and Skelton’s long-term partner, has competed in four Olympics and is ranked 11th in the world in show jumping. She won Olympic team gold in Beijing and, 16 years later, team silver in Paris when she was 58, making her the oldest American to win an Olympic medal in 72 years. In an interview with The Chronicle of the Horse in 2019, Kraut detailed her training program. A typical routine would include hammer swings, rope tricep curls, squats with weights, ladder runs, squat jumps, lunges with a ball, stationary lunges and running. Of course, a rider can compete only as long as they have a good horse to ride. Advances in technology help but, for Kraut, the secret to competing at a high level at a later age is having choice. “The best way to be competitive is to make sure your horses are in good condition and not overused,” she told US Equestrian in 2025. “I’m lucky to have a string of horses that can step up when needed. If I only had one, I’d be doing half of what I do now.” Kraut, who will be part of the U.S. team for this summer’s jumping World Championships in Aachen, Germany, will be 62 in 2028 when the Olympics come around next. “I have a lot of people tell me, ‘We’re nearly your age, and we’ve decided we’re going to keep going’,” she added. “I love that. It’s not something I set out to do, but if my career inspires someone to keep doing what they love, that’s special.” Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms