Julie Izzo is fully aware that her thirty-nine-year-old retired racehorse, New Year’s Eve, is the country’s oldest living Thoroughbred. And she’s not oblivious to the fact he’s the front-runner to take the win as the oldest such steed on record, should he still be standing come late September of this year. But all that takes a distant back saddle to appreciating every day she gets to spend with an animal she’s looked after for more than half of her own life.
“This horse is my world. I love him to the ends of the earth,” says Izzo, who calls her charge Axl instead of by his registry name. (Yes, she’s a Guns N’ Roses fan.) “He’s been through thick and thin with me.”
She admits that their relationship was more thin than thick for quite a while after she bought Axl in 1993 from a stable in Austin, Texas, where he’d retired from an undistinguished racing career two years earlier. “Thoroughbreds tend to be a little high-strung, but that’s what I grew up riding,” says Izzo, who now resides in Pennsylvania. “I’ve ridden my entire life, and Axl was by far the biggest challenge I ever had. He wouldn’t make eye contact, he was closed off mentally. I didn’t always have the patience needed—there were days when I felt like I was in over my head, that he was too much horse for me. I spent a lot of hours just sitting on a milk crate in the pasture, waiting for him to approach so I could feed him. Finally, once he did trust me, he cared only about me. I’m his person.”
Even now, Izzo wouldn’t exactly describe Axl as affectionate. “He’s never been a touchy-feely horse. He doesn’t have a mean bone in his body, but if he’s not on the same page with you, you’re going to know it,” she says. “But what he does with me is just soften. If I’m there, he’s okay. His form of affection is trust.”
That trust likely was deepened by two health scares that threatened to greatly shorten Axl’s impressive lifespan, including a near-fatal bout with liver disease caused by contaminated hay, and neglect by a stable Izzo trusted with Axl’s care while she joined her husband on an overseas military deployment. Both times, she nursed—and willed—her horse back to health.
Along with advancements in nutrition and veterinary care, Izzo believes strongly that Axl’s subsequent vigor is a result of living almost entirely outdoors. “Every barn-builder company will hate me, but I don’t care—horses aren’t made to live in a barn,” she says. “They are made to be out moving, which benefits digestion, cardio, and the respiratory system. You show me wild horses that live in a cave and I’ll change my mind. Part of the bond I have with Axl is that I let him be a horse.”
Izzo stopped riding Axl entirely about five years ago, and as he enters the home stretch of how long a Thoroughbred can be expected to live, she’s noticed not just the spread of gray on his face (“We both had dark hair when this relationship started,” she laughs), but an ebbing of energy. “A year ago, he’d shake the ground when he galloped past. He still trots, and can canter, but it’s not his favorite thing. He’s definitely slowing down.”
That’s not to say all of Axl’s fire is flickering, as evidenced by uphill treks and even an occasional temperamental kick. “By their nature Thoroughbreds will give you everything they have, plus 10 percent,” Izzo says, “so I have to make sure he doesn’t go beyond what is comfortable and say, ‘Maybe that’s enough today, buddy.’ He has a spark that refuses to die.”
