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Donovan “Van” Ketzler is 89 years old, and in some ways, it shows. He moves slowly, with a shuffle step, and he's a bit hard of hearing. Though he stands with the upright posture of a proud military veteran, his head and shoulders stoop, creating a slight hunch. His hands are a topography of wrinkles and raised veins. After a series of surgeries, his rotator cuffs are nonexistent. “I can move my arm this high,” he says, raising his left arm just below chest level. Nonetheless, in a few minutes Ketzler will do something that would seem impossible to an onlooker but that anyone who knows him understands is the defining characteristic of his remarkable life.

It's a gorgeous spring morning at the Starborn Farm stables in Valley, the first nice day of the year, and Ketzler and his longtime friend Vicki Krecek are brushing the winter coat off a white horse called Snowdrift, or “Snowy” for short.

He's preparing to ride, but first Ketzler has something on his mind.

“I'd like to put on my uniform,” he says.

With that, he disappears for several minutes, returning in the fashion of a U.S. cavalryman. He wears a flat-brimmed olive-green hat, matching button-up shirt, khaki wool pants and an immaculate pair of brown riding boots, handcrafted by the boot company that's been in his family since 1885. He takes Snowy by the reins and walks him to a three-step platform outside the stable.

At the top of the platform, Ketzler places his left hand on Snowy's mane and his right hand on the back of his saddle. He puts one boot in Snowy's left stirrup and counts.

One. Two. Three.

In a single, improbable motion, Ketzler throws his right leg over the saddle and into place. Immediately he sits up straight and grins.

“Feels good,” he says.

As Ketzler rides off, Krecek looks on, speaking words as true as any ever spoken.

“He looks a whole lot younger when he gets up on a horse than when he walks up to the horse,” she says.

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