It’s time for Able Sportsfield to ride off into the sunset. But don’t be surprised if he takes the long option.

A Moore County eventing fixture since 2001, Able Sportsfield has taken part in 16 events at the Carolina Horse Park. He’s won four of those and taken his doting owner, Michele Lobsinger, up to the intermediate level.

Able and Lobsinger have also won preliminary outings at The Fork (2003), Pine Top (2003) and Surefire Horse Trials (2005), and twice competed in the American Eventing Championships.

A 14-year-old Irish sport horse, Able is making his final appearance as an event horse this weekend at the Five Points Horse Trials at the Carolina Horse Park. The residual effects of a coffin bone fracture suffered early in his career were beginning to compromise Able’s training, so he will retire to a bucolic pasture on the original Stonybrook property with his miniature horse, Bear, and Sailor, a retired event horse owned by Lobsinger’s friend, Anne Seline.

An outsized gray gelding who evokes a Thelwell pony on steroids, Able has been much more to Lobsinger, 42, than her first “big” event horse. He’s been a source of comfort through many sorrows, including her mother’s death from lung cancer in 2005, the death of her beloved Appaloosa, Fozzy Bear, and years of fertility problems.

Lobsinger’s close bond and impressive show record with Able is a marvel to those who witnessed their inauspicious beginning.

Lobsinger grew up in the Detroit city limits, the only child of divorced parents. She lived with her mother in a two-bedroom condominium. Horses were not an option, nor were they anywhere to be found, save for the occasional police horse she patted on the nose.

“As soon as I graduated from college, I knew I was going to start riding,” Lobsinger said. “It was that simple. I was going to ride.”

Lobsinger began taking riding lessons and got a job teaching middle school math. She met and fell in love with Scott, a neighborhood kid who grew up six blocks from her, and married him. Ten years later, with Scott, Fozzy Bear and two corgis in tow, she moved to Southern Pines to chase her dream.

For two years, Lobsinger was a working student for eventing legend Mike Plumb. In 2001, Lobsinger left Plumb to work for his protégée, Lauren O’Brien, a team gold medalist at the 1999 Pan American Games.

O’Brien and her husband, David, were having success importing Irish horses for resale. They found Able on a trip to Ireland in 2000, and bought him as a “very green” 4-year-old, according to O’Brien.

“He had foxhunted and jumped in an indoor arena there,” said O’Brien. “He was great, but definitely green.”

Lobsinger zeroed in on Able the moment she saw him, O’Brien said.

“She mentioned something about wanting another horse, and I made a couple of suggestions,” O’Brien said. “She said, “But I really like Able. I kept telling her, ‘He’s pretty green,’ and she kept saying, ‘But I really like him!’”

O’Brien laughed. “And if you know Michele, you know that once she makes her mind up, that’s it,” she added.

O’Brien said she was “guardedly optimistic” that Lobsinger could handle the inexperienced gelding. “I felt better about it knowing that she’d be with us, and have the right help,” O’Brien said.

In the beginning, Lobsinger took daily lessons with the O’Briens. The partnership was forming, and it would not be derailed … even when one partner broke the other partner’s skull.

“He was sleeping after an event, and, like an idiot, I crawled into his stall to move some hay by his hind feet,” Lobsinger said. “He kicked me out of the stall into Lauren and David’s driveway.”

Dazed and bleeding, Lobsinger crawled into a tack room to call 911. “I just startled him,” Lobsinger said. “He thought I was a bug or something.”

After their training level win at the 2001 Pinehurst Horse Trials, Able began to exhibit intermittent lameness. He was eventually diagnosed with a fractured coffin bone, a serious injury that can jeopardize a horse’s competitive career. Lobsinger acquired Bear to keep Able company during his recuperation, and began to focus on starting her own (two-legged) family.

The Lobsingers had been trying to have children for years. “I couldn’t get pregnant, and my doctor said it was stress,” Lobsinger said. “We tried for eight years. We spent all our money trying.”

Able, for his part, came back from his injury seemingly better than ever. He returned to eventing in early 2003; from June to October of that year he won four events, including open preliminary at Five Points.

The following year, he won two prelims — one at the Southern Pines Horse Trials — and qualified for the AEC’s, run that year at the Horse Park.

“Prelim was his thing,” Lobsinger said. “He always won in spite of me.”

Two days before her dressage test at the AECs, Lobsinger received devastating news: Her mother had been diagnosed with lung cancer. Lobsinger and Able competed in the event, adding only four stadium jumping penalties to their dressage score and finishing 17th. The following day, she was on a plane to Detroit.

For the next year, that became Lobsinger’s routine: Ride Able, fly to Detroit to be with her mother, fly back, ­compete Able. Her mother had chosen not to undergo chemotherapy or radiation; Lobsinger supported her decision.

“My mom was really tiny,” Lobsinger said. “She said, ‘Look, I’m 100 lbs., and I don’t want to get down to 80. I’m going to live my life.’”

With homeopathic treatment, Lobsinger’s mother lived “a really good 10 months.” She began to weaken just before the 2005 AECs, also at the Horse Park.

“That was a really emotional time for me,” Lobsinger said. “Able was everything to me, but my mom was ­everything. He was my happy thing; my mom’s cancer was my awful thing. And it was all happening at the same time.”

Lobsinger’s mother insisted she stay and compete in the AECs. After a 15th place finish, Lobsinger flew to Detroit. Her mother died two weeks later.

Before her mother’s illness, Lobsinger and her husband had planned to adopt a child from China. When her mother died, she left Lobsinger a small inheritance: her condominium.

“That was her legacy,” Lobsinger said. “She bought it years ago when it was worth $20,000, and she was so proud when she was able to pay it off.”

Lobsinger sold the condo. The profits were just enough to adopt not one, but two ­children — from Guatemala.

Five-month-old Natalie was the first to arrive; 10-month-old Angelo followed six months later. Both babies had been raised together, and even slept in the same crib.

“I could not have gotten my kids without my mom,” Lobsinger said.

With two 4-year-old children, Lobsinger has had to budget time — and money — to continue eventing. In 2007, Able was showing signs of wear and tear, so Lobsinger decided to give him an extended vacation and focus on her two infants, as well as her private tutoring business — Able Tutoring.

She lost Fozzy Bear that year, and, needing a distraction, bought a mare named Brandenburg’s Starlight that she hoped would one day replace Able. Like Able, Starlight was a gray Irish sport horse with a big jump.

But she wasn’t Able.

“I’ll never make that mistake again,” Lobsinger said. “I’m only going to get one Able in this lifetime. There was no way she could meet my expectations being compared to him, so I sold her to a lady who absolutely loves her.”

Able was away from recognized horse trials for three years. During that time, Lobsinger rode him in dressage shows, and he was the highest scoring preliminary horse at the 2007 Pinehurst Schooling Show. She rode Able bareback all over town, and let her close friend, Dot Greenleaf, take him for hacks.

Greenleaf had been seriously injured years earlier when a horse flipped and landed on her while schooling, and it was assumed she would never ride again. Lobsinger had been boarding Able at Greenleaf’s farm, and Greenleaf would occasionally wander out to watch Lobsinger ride.

“One day she said to me, ‘I’d like to sit on him,’” Lobinger recalled. “She got on him and said, ‘Oh, I’m just going to walk.’ Pretty soon, she’s trotting around the ring with a huge smile on her face.”

Soon, Greenleaf (on Able) was joining Lobsinger (on Starlight) for hacks through the woods.

“I’ll never forget,” Lobsinger said. “One day we were walking along, and Dottie said, ‘Let’s trot through these lanes.’ Pretty soon, she picks up a canter. And the next thing you know, she’s galloping him. There are so many times he should have been spooked when she was on him, but he never moved unless she told him to.”

In March, Able returned to eventing in the Southern Pines I Horse Trials. Competing at training level, he finished on his dressage score (34.60) and took home a blue ribbon. At the Lumber River Horse Trials in June, Lobsinger fell during cross-country when Able stopped at the second fence on course, a table.

“I rolled off and landed on my feet, looking right at him,” Lobsinger said.

After many sleepless nights, Lobsinger came to the decision that Able should retire from eventing. “But he deserved to go out on a happier note than having me fall off him,” she said.

At O’Brien’s suggestion, Lobsinger dropped Able down to novice for Five Points.

“Lauren said, ‘Let him go out like a rock star and have fun,’” Lobsinger said. “He’s been too good a horse.”

O’Brien, whose Pan Am mount, Wexford, died in June at age 26, marvels at the connection Lobsinger has with Able.

“It’s just so unfortunate that he fractured his coffin bone so early in his career,” O’Brien said. “His body has had to cope with that ever since. It’s a bit amazing how long he’s stuck it out for her.”

Lobsinger, who once turned down a six-figure offer for Able from a client of Plumb’s, said she still might take him to some dressage shows. “We’ll see how he feels,” she said. “He may just get hacked around here. What’s worn him out is the day to day training to get ready for events. Not the events.”

O’Brien knows too well the bittersweet emotions involved in retiring a much-loved event horse.

Last year, she retired her ultra-consistent advanced horse, Dunrath Alto, at 18. The towering Irish gelding took O’Brien to the Rolex Three Day Event five times (2001, 2003, and 2006-08). For two of those rides, O’Brien was pregnant … five months along, in one case.

“I’ve been lucky,” O’Brien said. “Some people never get one ‘horse of a lifetime.’ I’ve had two.””

O’Brien said she has been “pleasantly surprised” how successful the partnership between Lobsinger and Able worked out.

“He’s an amazing horse,” O’Brien said. “It’s going to be really hard for her to lose that, because he means so much to her on so many different levels. But he’s earned his retirement. And it just goes to show … they don’t have to go to the Olympics to be a horse of a lifetime.”