A veteran gold miner, who owns two horses with a combined age nearly as old as him, says a disease caused by over-irrigation nearly killed one of them, forcing him to spend $5000 over the past two months to keep the animal alive.

But the lessor of the property just outside Alexandra says the man has been offered alternative paddocks and simply refused, and they had gone out of their way to help him,

Lester Cochrane, 70, who is still mining gold and has been a musterer, mostly in the Beaumont and wider West Otago area, is now living in semi-retirement in Clyde.

He owns a Clydesdale named Bonnie, who is almost 30, and a standardbred named Jack, a gelding, who was foaled in 1991.

"The two of them are mates.…