There’s a reason Lauren DeNeve has a special name for the people who help take care of her horse Maven.

“We call all of her help Maven’s Minions,” said DeNeve. “We let her do whatever she wants. She likes to knock people around, but when I’m on her back, she and I have a really good rapport.”

The 20-year-old Cleveland Bay-Thoroughbred mare has been retired a few times throughout her career, but she always seems to come back, and the former carriage horse is still going strong after being brought out of retirement again last year.

She and DeNeve placed second in the intermediate rider division at Rocking Horse Winter II (Fla.) and most recently were fourth in the open intermediate at Red Hills (Fla.).

“As long as she keeps going, we’re having fun with her,” said DeNeve.

Maven (Starlane Lieutenant—Lengths Ahead, Art Market) came into DeNeve’s life 14 years ago. DeNeve had some experience at preliminary and intermediate, and she was looking for a 4-year-old project to develop while she was in college. But a shopping trip to Darren Chiacchia’s barn led her to purchase of Maven, who was 6 and had only been under saddle for about 30 days after a career as a driving horse.

“She has a bad kicking problem in the stall, so my guess is she probably kicked the carriage,” DeNeve said. “She has a few ornery stable habits, but she’s very sweet to people and has been a fun mare to bring up.”

Maven took to eventing easily, and the pair competed to the two-star level. Along the way, though, Maven needed surgery to remove OCD lesions from her stifles and also underwent two sinus surgeries to repair damage from a chronic issue that she’d had before DeNeve bought her.

In 2007, DeNeve relocated to Florida in preparation for their first advanced, but those plans got put on hold when the mare suffered a tendon injury. It took Maven two years to rehab from the tendon, and during that time DeNeve went back to school for her nurse practitioner’s degree.

Maven came back out in 2010 and had completed a few preliminary events, winning the preliminary rider division at Ocala Horse Properties Horse Trials (Fla.) that April, before she came in from the field and was lame under saddle. She was diagnosed with a hip fracture in 2011, which took six months to heal. So DeNeve decided to breed her.

“Each time she got injured I went back for another degree!” said DeNeve. “I had two horses, so I brought her back really slow because my school schedule was crazy.”

Maven has two foals, a 3-year-old by On The Catwalk and a 2-year-old by Sea Accounts, that DeNeve hopes to bring along in eventing.

When she didn’t have enough money to breed her again last year, DeNeve let her student Lauren Calvert bring the mare back into work.

“We had no expectations whatsoever on what she was going to do. We said, ‘Oh if you can run around novice or training, go for it.’ It’s all been an interesting journey,” she said. Calvert completed three events on Maven at the novice and training levels last spring.

At the end of the year, DeNeve tested her out in a couple of prelim events—winning at Stable View Horse Trials (S.C.) in September. So, she decided to try intermediate again this year.

Maven and DeNeve on course at Red Hills at intermediate. Photo by Lindsay Berreth

“We’re hoping, if she stays sound, to finish her career with one advanced run before I retire her again. We keep threatening her that she’s going to have more babies, so she keeps going!” said DeNeve with a laugh.

Maven is queen of the barn, but she can also be quite lazy.

“Show jumping’s always interesting,” said DeNeve. “She was very hard for me to figure out dressage-wise because with the carriage headset she easily inverts and comes behind. So finally at 20 years old I’m learning to ride her—better late than never I guess! But jumping wise she’s always been pretty bold. I feel like you could aim her at a cliff, and she would go off it. She’s an awesome cross-country horse.”

When asked what the secret to Maven’s longevity is, DeNeve said, “She’s on joint supplements [Maven has only had two sets of hock injections in her life, and one was recently to keep her comfortable], she’s turned out as much as possible, she’s on the Cavalor feeds. She’s a pretty tough mare; she has good feet. As long as she keeps wanting to do it, we keep wanting to do it with her. Other than her self-destructive nature, she’s been low maintenance.”

DeNeve, Dade City, Fla., is a full-time nurse practioner now but keeps a small horse business on the side. She said she tried the full-time professional equestrian life, and it wasn’t for her.

“Luckily I found a clinic that I’m working at that’s very flexible around my schedule, so even though I’m full time, I have two half days to ride and only work one Saturday every five weeks, so I have at least four to five days a week I can ride,” she said. “I have some girls at the barn who help with trot sets. I cut the horse business way down because we had 13 horses, and I was working full time and ripping my hair out. So we now have six or seven typically. Two are babies, and two or three are clients’ horses. We’ve minimized it to keep it fun.”