Dorothy was sentenced to three months prison in Wales . . . basically for making life a living hell for her genteel neighbours. She called one unfortunate woman a prostitute, then gave her a good whack with a sturdy walking stick and rounded off with a murder threat for the family pet. Very alarming behaviour from a woman who has already waved goodbye to her 81st birthday.

Happily though, most senior citizens thread a more virtuous path in their golden years. For instance, one Dimitrov Yordanis reportedly completed a marathon in seven and a half hours which isn't half bad for a man of 98.

Even Ronald Reagan was let play around with the nuclear button when he was staring 80 in the face.

These extraordinary late life adventures are not only restricted to humans however, and this week's Punchestown horse-racing festival will witness the continuation of one of the more notable feats of race horse training in recent years, and write another chapter in a story that is emblematic of almost all that is good about the National Hunt code.

Adamant Approach, at the ripe old age of 13, travels to the Co Kildare festival looking for his seventh win of the season, a haul that would bring serious credit and recognition to a horse even half his age. Yet to judge Adamant solely on the amount of his wins would only begin to scratch the surface of an incredible story.

Runners in their teenage years are a very rare commodity in horse-racing and most will have hung up their bridles long before they reach such a venerable age.

Teenage winners are even more infrequent, so even if Adamant Approach had scrambled one lucky win this year in a low grade handicap hurdle it would still have been a remarkable achievement.

Yet since the season began proper last autumn he has won a flat race, a steeplechase, four handicap hurdles, been placed at the Cheltenham festival . . . and the chances are that he is not finished yet. This, however, is still far from the whole story.

He has won races on a range of ground conditions, from bottomless heavy to top of the ground good, and those victories have been in partnership with jockeys as varied in ability as Ruby Walsh, to inexperienced claimers such as Richie Kiely and Patrick Mullins. Even this, however, does not complete the story.

His wins have come at a variety of courses, ranging from provincial Killarney to the grade-one metropolitan tracks such as Leopardstown, Punchestown and Fairyhouse, and over a variety of distances from one mile and six furlongs on the flat to three miles over hurdles.

So surely that's the whole story?

Well not quite all of it. The most remarkable part of Adamant Approach's 'annus mirabilus' is that despite history screaming that his best days should be long behind him, this horse keeps surprising by improving his form in leaps and bounds. It's as though Augusta National Golf Club invited Jack Nicklaus to make the ceremonial first drive at the Masters and watched incredulously as the Golden Bear streaked to a first-day lead. This is not supposed to happen in the real world.

The trainer, Willie Mullins, attributes the horse's late life blossom to a number of factors.

"He comes from a family that traditionally mature with age and very few of them win before they are six". He also thinks recovered confidence is also a big factor in his improvement.

"He had two hard falls when he was younger, one when he was coming to win his grade-one race at Cheltenham and the other when he slipped up after the second last for no obvious reason in the Power's Gold Cup at Fairyhouse. These may have dented his confidence and now that he has his confidence back he is improving with it."

There is an objective way to measure just how much he has improved in a year and that is to examine the rating allocated to him to by the handicapper at the last two Cheltenham festivals. Official ratings are a measure of how much weight any given horse should carry in any nominal handicap race. In 2006 this was set at 134 over hurdles. This year it had risen by 17 pounds.

In other words, the horse would be officially expected to finish about 20 lengths better at the age of 13 than he had done at 12.

Although Mullins is modestly dismissive of his own crucial part in the pageant, this type of improvement in his horses is not a once-off fluke. Stable mate, Mossy Green is also 13 and although he has not won since the turn of the year he has been placed four times and fourth once in the five races he has had since then, and was nimble enough to win under top weight late last year. The great Florida Pearl was sent from the same yard to win the Cheltenham Bumper at the age of five and was still happy enough in his work to win the Hennessy at Leopardstown at the age of 12. The Bagnelstown yard is a nice cocoon for horses to grow old in, and the watch word is patience.

Mullins explains his strategy. "I don't believe horses are spent forces by nine or 10 and I don't believe in running young horses too much either.

Even though Adamant Approach was the favourite for the Cheltenham Bumper we pulled him out a few days beforehand with sore joints and gave him time to recover."

By his seventh birthday the horse had only seen the racecourse four times, the same number of times he has run since he turned 13.

Applying the same patience in the way he is ridden has also helped the horse according to Mullins. His son Patrick, like Adamant Approach still a teenager, has ridden him to two wins and place twice in four rides, including a third in the Pertemps final at Cheltenham. "Patrick rides him with patience, and I definitely think he appreciates this and it may be another key factor."

How long does the trainer think he can keep going?

"After this week we'll give him some time off but the way he won that flat race at Galway means we have to take him to Galway for the main festival . . .

so we are looking at least as forward as that." He considers his form going into Punchestown this week. "After he won at Fairyhouse last month we gave him a week off.

Tracey (Gilmour) rode him in his next piece of work and when she pulled him up I asked how he went. She told me that she didn't like his weeks off. In other words he was too fresh."

The good news is that 'fresh' in this case is not the 'I'm going to skull you with my walking stick' kind of fresh . . . but the positive and enthusiastic kind. It might even be the winning at Punchestown kind of fresh. And that, finally, is the whole story.

So far.