Jaming Jamelle and Van Tasias Patches have more in common than winning buckles for their owners at the 2009 Summer World Show. Both Paints beat much younger competition while in their 20s: Jaming Jamelle is a foal of 1988, while Van Tasias Patches was born just one year later.

Many Paint owners and trainers may be looking for that next futurity horse to saddle up for the World Show. But some competitors return year after year with the same animals. Age never seems to catch up to these incredible horses.

Certainly, bloodlines may play a role, as some stallions and mares simply produce longer-lived offspring. But owners and trainers say that how you manage your horses will go a long way toward keeping them at the peak of whatever job they do.

Traci Smith and her sister, Tami Purcell, know all about caring for older horses. Their father, Bob Purcell, was especially good at it. With four children growing up in Stonewall, Texas—all wanting to show horses—he had to be.