My Grandad didn't retire his horses until my Dad went into the Marine Corp in 1956. His Brother-in-Law who was a dedicated horse man breeding and training, kept them longer, I remember his last animal. My Great Uncle kept a pair of draft horses well into the '70s, he had a tractor which he mostly kept safely in the barn. It was hard for some of those old guys to let go. They'd worked with horses there whole lives, the smells, the ritual, the companionship. Of course some hated the critters and moved to tractors right away and some realized it was farming they hated but took it out on the animals.
