December 20, 2024 
Retirement can be hard, especially on the most successful among us.
For some, getting used a new routine can be challenging. Others struggle to find purpose outside of an all-encompassing career that spanned decades. It’s much the same for eventer Shane Rose’s 19-year-old Virgil.
As the highest-rated Australian horse in the word and the oldest horse ever to win at the five-star level (Equirating), the Australian-bred warmblood made his international debut 13 years ago, finishing in the top 20 this summer in his final championship appearance at the Paris Olympics.
After the Games, and a few weeks in quarantine, Virgil was welcomed home in fitting fashion by the younger members of the Rose clan.
But if an Olympic silver medalist (Tokyo) with four major championship appearances on his resume who has logged more than 105,000 air miles in six trips from Australia to Europe and back might have a hard time adjusting to life as an “everyday Joe,” think again.
Playfully nicknamed “CEO at Bimbadeen” by Rose’s team, Virgil soon found himself turned out in the field with the farm’s young horses, where the gelding sometimes acts as the pied piper (read: instigator) of paddock fun and games.
In early November, however, things took a more serious turn.
When one of Bimbadeen’s pregnant mares went into labor in the paddock, the baby accidentally rolled into Virgil’s paddock during birth. The next morning, barn employees were surprised to find the veteran champion temporarily fostering the new foal, who was thankfully reunited with its mother.
Everyone did okay, and Virgil—a horse with two World Championships, a five-star victory at Adelaide, top-10 finishes in Lumühlen and Pau, and 16 wins in nearly 50 international starts—can now add the title of “baby nurturer” to his resume. (That’s him in the background with the white star!)
It’s not the first time a member of Bimbadeen Park has had to depend on Virgil in a big way.
Less than a year ago, Rose was seriously injured while schooling another horse on cross county four months before the Paris Games, leaving him with 19 fractures and wheelchair-bound. In a twist not even Hollywood could have written, Rose worked tirelessly at his rehab, while his wife Niki, also a professional rider, kept Virgil in top form.
Thankfully, Rose earned his all-clear to participate in the Games just in time, astounding the world with his fortitude—chronicled by his team on Rose’s Instagram.
“I think the advantage you have as a younger [rider] is not knowing what could go wrong. It’s that ‘ignorance is bliss’ approach, I guess. The advantage for me is the more experienced I’ve become I’ve learnt more tricks,” Rose told the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) in a prophetic interview months before his accident.
“I’m a hundred times a better rider than I was in the 1990s. In 2008, if I had the knowledge I have now, I’d probably win two gold medals and not the silver. Here’s the thing that’s difficult about our sport—it’s dangerous. So, the ability to keep fronting up, and the competitive drive, to keep that for a long period of time it is very hard.
“But I’m as keen to win that gold medal now as [when I went] to Atlanta in 1996. That’s why I keep fronting up every day.”
And so, while other riders might have had a pause about trotting out a 19-year-old eventer, flying him around the globe to France, and trusting him to safely navigate a CCI4*-L-level country course in front of the world, Rose was uniquely equipped to put full faith in his old partner.
After all, age may come with a few more achy joints, but it also comes with wisdom—and true grit.
“Virgil is [a bit] arrogant. He’s pretty confident in his own abilities, and I certainly draw to horses like that; that have that natural flair, athleticism, are a little bit obnoxious … probably similar attributes to myself, really,” Shane jokingly told the AOC.
Clearly, when it comes to Virgil, it was faith well placed.
