Hi guys,
I am considering getting back into endurance riding and need your “wise outdoorsy COTHers” advice!
I grew up competing and crewing in endurance back in Europe (did I say that it was all in kilometers and that all your miles are confusing me?). I have since “moved on to the dark side” and I am currently doing mostly jumping/eventing. But I just moved the horses to a more “rural” location with fab trails and dirt roads and, well, I guess the short of it is that each time I ride past the arena’s door practicing my shoulder-ins, I have “trail envy”… 
I am quite familiar with the conditioning/ride prep, etc (though I welcome any advice) and I’ve checked the AERC website.
So I am mostly wondering about the logistics of competing in the US.
How does the “points system” work for instance? (back “home”, you needed to have completed a 60 km race at X speed, x number of times before you could move on to a 90km, and so on). How does one qualify for a next longer race here? Or can riders train at home and enter any race they feel their horse is ready for?
Any favorite races in the Midwest?
Does everyone really camp? (you can judge me, but I like my comfy bed and cool shower after riding all day…)
Any advice would be most welcome. Thanks guys!
We have no points/qualification system(at least for AERC, think FEI has one).
You can choose to ride any distance(assuming your horse meets the age requirements) you want to.
A few rides have requirements- for Tevis you have to have a certain # of miles before you can enter.
At the rides I go to, pretty much everyone camps, at least the night before. In my region( West ) It’s a long drive to most of them(4hrs on average for me). I camp the night before and after, with the exception of a few close rides where I have driven home after the ride (less than an hour from home and I wait around camp for a few hours to let me and horse rest )
I also like to spend the night even if I am close as their tends to be a nice potluck the night before the ride and a ride dinner the night after.
A sun shower is great- basically a black plastic bag with a shower nozzle attached. Fill it up, let it sit in the sun all day, when you get back to camp, put it ontop of the trailer, pull the hose inside the trailer and take a shower. That said, some ride camps have permenant showers- if you feel like a really long drive, the Cueno Creek(W) and Haunting (NW) rides have excellent hot showers.
For sleeping, I have a camper shell on the truck. I put a nice thick futon down, very comfy and minimal setup/take down. I might not sleep well the night before the ride, but always do the night after.
For camping, I would check out outdoors stores for extra gear.
While it’s true that most everyone camps, “camp” means different things to different people. Many if not most endurance riders in the SE have nice Living Quarter (LQ) trailers complete with the hot shower and comfy mattress. All sizes from the small and modest (but comfortable) to huge with slide-outs and almost full kitchens. I don’t know what you’re used to in Europe and you didn’t say what kind of pocketbook you’re dealing with 
but is is possible to combine camp and comfy.
Tell us what your truck /trailer combo is and I’m sure someone will chime in with how to set it up!
You guys are great! Thanks for all the advice!
A teacher’s salary makes for a “modest pocketbook” so the truck/trailer combo is -currently - an old F150 and a (borrowed) stock horse trailer.
Since distances are so much smaller in Europe, we would just stay at a hotel or a B&B and the horses would stay at riding schools close to the race if that particular race didn’t have temporary stabling. You all are way more tough and adventurous than we ever were. I am impressed!
I just wanted to add that camping is more common than hotels because we have large amounts of space in the US as opposed to Europe, so the rides are far from towns/cities. I don’t do endurance riding (but would love to), however my husband is from Austria and I know from our visits Europe is very dense and packed. You can’t drive for a couple of hours over there and not see any cities or even cars on the road, but wide, empty spaces are pretty common in the US.
I haven’t started riding in endurance yet but I have an old 2 horse trailer and I plan to just sleep in the back of the truck 
Sleeping the back of the truck works well- a camper shell is great in case of rain and relatively cheap. I have also swept out the trailer, put a tarp down and sleep there.
