Best horse for Endurance riding...? (for fun thread)

[WhiteMountainsRanch]

Wow, now how do I get a farm/ people like that to help me learn?


ETA; What do you think about their horses (I know hard to tell from a picture)

 

[welsummerchicks]

IT'S TOO BAD YOU'RE NOT ENTHUSIASTIC!!!

LOL.

I talked to an endurance pal as I am not very knowledgeable about this event, so most of this comes from her. According to her, she's one of the best in the sport....JUUUUUST kidding, lol.

It's kind of hard to say as you're wanting a lot of traits in one individual, and some of the things - doesn't eat a lot, doesn't get sick, fast, carry a big person....that, as horse people say, 'that is God's horse'.

You won't find all of that. You'll need to provide feed for your horse on endurance rides, and you'll need to take good care of your horse and condition it very, very carefully, and consistently, to keep it from becoming lame, there is no breed that 'doesn't tend to go lame'. It's a matter of how carefully the horse is trained and ridden, appropriate shoeing. And you will find out that 'going really fast!' is not all that easy in endurance. The horse has to be very, very carefully conditioned, and it takes an awful lot of practice and experience to get a feel for the pace and pick the right gait, and work the terrain into the ride strategically.

Most of the top competitive endurance horses are Arabians. As you go down from the top level competitions, you start to see more variety of breeds. Many people seem to simply do endurance riding, training and competing with 'what they got'. You do see some rather heavily built breeds in endurance in some of the shorter rides (shorter being relative!!!).

Arabians tend to run rather small, and most of them aren't 'up to weight', meaning, built for carrying a heavy rider. My vet had some very angry words about that...and he feels that for endurance the rider's weight should be carefully matched to the size and weight of the horse. They can also be rather sensitive, not always a good choice for a novice.

Actually, the endurance riders here will have ideas, but I seriously think that for a novice rider, whether it's for endurance or not, it should be a quiet, easy to ride horse, that the novice can get experience on, that is up to weight.

Buying a horse that has already done some short rides, and seen all that and done all that and is very reliable and safe, is a really hood choice. I woudn't be as concerned about 'fast fast fast' for a first horse.

 

[WhiteMountainsRanch]

.and he feels that for endurance the rider's weight should be carefully matched to the size and weight of the horse.

And how do you determine that? Weight of the rider vs. height of the horse?​

 

[welsummerchicks]

The usual formula is that the rider should weigh no more than 20% of the horse's weight.

Jockeys are usually 10 or 12% of the horse's weight, so most likely, if the rider intends speed work, distance or difficult jumping, maybe even less than 20% should be the limit - and indeed most eventers and endurance riders are less than 20% of the horse's weight.

That usual rule of 20% would mean a horse of 1200 lbs would carry a at most, a 240 lb person.

A 1200 lb horse is a fairly big horse, and liable to be fairly tall (16.1 hands, being 'hands'(4 inches each) and inches). Many of the smaller Arabians run 700-900 lbs.

 

[Lifesong Farm]

May I also suggest a shorter backed horse. Think of a board on 2 sawhorses. The farther apart you place the sawhorses the more the board sags in the middle. When you move them closer together they can hold more weight.

My horse is only 900# and she can handle my weight and more without a problem. There are some 1200+ lb animals I would NEVER get on. If you would like more info on the weight pm me because I am not going to get flamed.

 

[michickenwrangler]

Quote:
I know our endurance organization here in the Midwest has a list of mentors to help newbies get introduced to the sport. A lot of serious endurance riders have several horses to compete on and usually are fairly generous about lending horses out.

As someone else suggested, it would probably be best to start off with riding lessons if you are new to riding in general. Let the instructor know what your goals are and what you plan to do. A lot of endurance riders cross-train in dressage and most know how to jump low jumps as well.

Again, just about any horse can do a 25-30 mile LD (short for Limited Distance) event and the rules are slightly different. The "winner" isn't the first over the line. The "winner" is whose horse gets down to 60bpm for heart rate. This is to discourage "racing" the horse to the finish. An Arab-cross may be a good horse for you to start off with, like an Arab-QH and those are fairly common too.

You may also want to look into buying a "seasoned" endurance horse, one with some experience. They won't be "cheap" but they'll be more reasonable than say a Nat'l Top 10 show horse. Look for something that has 500-1,000 miles of competition with a 90%+ completion rate. Ask to see Best Condition scores (not all horses receive Best Condition and at big rides only the Top 10 riders are eligible) to give you an idea of the horse's strengths/weaknesses. You can again see www.aerc.org They have a big classified section. Seriously, just go there and play around. You'll learn a lot. WHen I wrotethe Aerc back in the late '90s, they sent me a bic package of magazines, conditioning regimens, and all sorts of stuff.

Good luck

 

[patandchickens]

Competetive trail rides can btw be a good way to "get your feet wet" in distance riding, once you are a pretty good rider and have an appropriate and appropriately-conditioned horse. Especially if you have a horse that is not already a seasoned endurance competitor. There are advantages to NOT buying a "made" endurance horse btw -- cheaper, and will not yet have learned to go-go-go-go-GO!!! so you are not as likely to have control issues making your life difficult. Of course there are certainly endurance horses on the market that do not pull like a freight train for the first hour or so, or make a menace of themselves in the first ten miles, but you will pay more for them

OTOH if you buy a 'made' horse once your skills are up to competing, he will be a whole lot easier to condition for rides and with a better assurance of soundness at that level of work than if you were starting with a basically-recreational horse.

Another thing is to learn the ins and outs of doing endurance rides. A real good way to learn a whole lot about that is to pit crew for people. Obviously you have to have good horse skills before you can do that, but once you can, it is highly educational. (Taught me that I would never, on any planet, want to do endurance, LOL) In fact you might want to just go hang out and WATCH at some rides, might in fact need to before you can hook up with someone to pit crew for

As for breed, any solidly-sound horse can do shorter competetive trailrides, and a reasonable fraction of solidly-sound horses can complete shorter endurance rides; but for "real" endurance the great majority of horses are Arabs, especially the ones actually winning ribbons as opposed to merely completing. Certainly if you got something OTHER THAN an endurance-type Arab to use for "real" distances or in hopes of being highly competetive, you'd want it to be proven under someone else's riding first, or get the advice of a very experienced and shrewd endurance trainer/competitor if you want to *try* picking a prospect (which for longer distances or faster times I really would not recommend for a novice)

Good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[michickenwrangler]

If you decide to pit crew (great idea!), for your first time you may want to crew for someone who DOESN'T plan on winning. Usually the winners need an experienced pit crew. And if you have thin skin, don't even bother. Crews tend to take the brunt of a rider's temper.

For a competitive trail ride, the NATRC--North American Trail Ride Conference sanctions rides in CA. However, many other comp organizations are disdainful of NATRC rides. There are a LOT of rules, they judge you on your equitation, set up obstacles and judge you on that, in addition to judging your campsite. At NATRC rides, horses must be tied to the trailer--no portable corrals or picketing allowed. However, NATRC does put out an excellent newsletter if you can get your hands on some copies of that.

Pat, you've probably had experience with OCTRA and my experience is UMECRA both of which are fast-paced organizations more akin to endurance. This is why so few Ohio comp riders compete in Michigan.

 

[babyblue]

if i was going to do it I would get an arab stock horse cross. qh paint or appy, but half arab. it should be a little bigger, calmer and more relaxed. key word is should as every horse is an individual.

 

[patandchickens]

Quote:
LOL, so true, so true

That is why you have to start with being reasonably knowledgeable about it. But personally I can't imagine trying to do a ride without ever having crewed, or at least spent a whole lot of time hainging around watching. There is SO much that has to go on, and so much of it is not the same as in just "hey we're going for a trail ride", and you sure would not want to be relying on your memory of what some book said or making it up as you go along

Pat