Interested in Endurance Riding

[Coppers_mom]

Hi all, I’m an eventer, and have been thinking about trying some endurance riding with my horse. She loves going out cross country, and gains/maintains fitness very well, and I thought that this might be something fun to try with her.

How should one go about getting involved in this type of riding? Is there any advice you could give me, or any good books regarding conditioning? Currently, I work for about an hour (she’s only 4) 5 days a week, with about 30 minutes of that being walking if you include warm-up, cool down and wandering around during breaks. She does about 20 minutes of walking on the road 3 times a week, and (moderate for her age) hill work twice a week. Any hillwork or roadwork is on top of her regular riding schedule.

Where should I go to gain more information about events in my area? There are GMO’s for dressage, eventing, H/J, etc, is there one for endurance (I’m in NC)? How do I find out where events will be held, entry information, etc?

How do you decide what type of competition your horse is ready for, and how do you prepare? Is there a certain time that you think to yourself “Ok, now the horse is ready for X number of miles.”? We do interval training for eventing, is it the same for endurance? Or do you just do long, slow miles?

Is the nutrition terribly different for an endurance horse, and does it change depending on what distance they’re being ridden? I’m not terribly interested in going 100 miles or anything, but I’ve been reading the threads on here, such as the one about electrolytes, and I want to make sure that I’m doing the best for her, even if we’re just doing shorter distances.

Thanks!

[wendybird]

Hi there:)
I’m on the bottom side of the world and I’m always encouraging people of other disciplines to try endurance. In fact, tomorrow I am taking 3 new riders and horses on their very first 40k (25 mile) rides. We will have a maximum time limit of 5 hours, and a minimum of 4. We may have snow, certainly a good midwinter frost.
It’s not complicated, more like training a human athlete for a marathon.
There’s no doubt that the horses love it, especially if they live most of their live in ‘barns’ and exercise in arenas. And riders get to see parts of the country that they would never otherwise visit.

I suggest that you investigate

http://www.ectra.org/Handbooks/ectraRDhbk%20copy.pdf

and try and get a copy of ‘Go The Distance’ by Nancy Loving DVM. Read, learn, and inwardly digest!

I found that starting out is fine, it’s only as you get a bit more experience you start to realise the finer points of long distance riding. And then you’re hooked!

I do hope you give it a go, and enjoy it mightily.

Go Well:cool:

[Eddy_s_Mom]

Hi there! So exciting to hear of new people wanting to come into the sport. The two websites below are going to be great resources for you:

www.endurance.net
www.aerc.org

Endurance.Net has lists of vendors for everything you would ever need, as well as a list-serve type discussion group- ridecamp. You can search the archives of ridecamp if you have a specific question. There are also several yahoo groups for endurance which are great as well.

I like Nancy Loving’s book Go The Distance as well, but do not agree with her conditioning protocol. This book was written many years ago and as with everything, things change.

As your horse is only four, you are limited to doing LD’s (25-30 miles) anyway until she is five, at which time you can compete in real endurance events. Must be six to do Tevis :winkgrin: Big aspirations!!

As far as conditioning, it sounds like she’s got a pretty good base. I certainly would not do interval training with her until she’s got many, many long, slow, distance (LSD) miles under her belt. Along with the slow conditioning, you not only safely build muscles, ligaments and strengthen bone, but you develop the mind you want. The last thing you need is to get to a ride and have your mare think she’s headed onto the xc field. She will most likely be racy by nature, so you really (trust me here) want to focus on keeping her quiet and rateable, as well as eating and drinking along the trail at every opportunity. The racing can come later if you chose to go that way.

The most common thing we see people do wrong when first getting into the sport is over-conditioning their horses. The second thing is coming to their first ride and trying to race, or not understanding that just because their horse is pushing to race, it does not mean they are fit enough to do so.

The conditioning is hard to give advice on, as every horse is different. You need to purchase a stethoscope and learn to take your horse’s pulse or a heart rate monitor. After every ride, take her pulse and see what she’s at. It should keep getting better and better as the weeks go on. 60 is the average criteria around here to determine if the horse is fit to continue- meaning the horse much reach a heart rate of 60 before they are considered to go on and before they can complete a ride. There is a time limit at the end of the ride (between 30 and 60 minutes) to reach that criteria. If your horse isn’t coming down to 60 within a few minutes after a training ride and cool-down, you need to back way off.

Start very slow, and try to find an endurance rider in your area that can mentor you. I wouldn’t worry about changing diet at this point, you have a ways to go before competing with your mare so there is lots of time to research and decide what’s right for your girl. On the AERC website, you can go to the ride calender and look for rides in your area. I highly recommend you try and attend some rides before competing, and volunteer! You will learn so much more by volunteering than anything else.

Sorry I went on and on, there is just so much about endurance riding it’s hard to summarize!

[saratoga]

You can go to aerc.org to get information on the rides in your area. You can also go to endurance.net and find “Ridecamp” and you can ask questions about the rides in your area- like what the terrain is like, difficulty level, if its a good ride for a newbie, etc. Also, volunteering at rides is a great idea.

A 25 is generally not that difficult for a young healthy horse. You dont really have to do anything differently with feeding and electrolytes generally arent necessary at that level. I would make sure your horse is OK out on the trail with other horses and also can camp out in some form-either tied to the trailer, or high line, or in a portable corral. I would definitely plan to do your first ride slowly. If you can go out on the trail and do some trotting and walking and a little cantering if you want, and do about 15-17 miles in about 3 hours and your horse is in great shape afterwards, you can probably do a 25 (in similar conditions) just fine. (A GPS is a great tool for measuring distance and mph.) Your horse sounds like she is already in good overall shape, so if you go out on the trail to condition once or twice a week, working up to the 15 miles, you should be fine in say 2-3 months or so to do a 25.

[busterwells]

I usually go to www.oaats.org for rides and events coming up.

[wendybird]

As others have said - you will have to do shorter rides to qualify for the ‘races’ and by that time you will know if you really enjoy the sport and if your horse has the ‘head’ for it.
Eddy’s Mom makes good comments.
Some horses just don’t enjoy it at all and that’s that. Or they may take a few outings to learn about pacing themselves and give you a rough ride for the first few miles. You will notice that most experienced endurance horses are ridden on a loose rein and both they and their riders are very relaxed as they trot along mile after mile. They know that they have a long way to go!
It also takes a good few rides to build a bond and to experience all the different situations and develop ride strategies. For instance, yesterday for the first time my mare and I found ourselves well ahead all on our own, and she had to learn to keep going without knowing that a horse was in front of her or in earshot behind. It took about 6 miles for her to settle into a good rhythm, and that first spell was darn hard work.
Incidently my 3 friends finished their first 25 miles in 4 1/2 hours and passed the final vet check with flying colours. They were so excited!

[chicamuxen1]

I’ll mention another important training element, RIDING IN COMPANY at all gaits. I’ve run several training rides for novice horses/riders and one thing that many are not prepared for is riding down the trail surrounded by other horses. I’m not talking about the carefully slooooow trail ride that many folks from other diciplines do. You will find your horse amongst horses who are trotting along, spooking, bucking, head slinging, having a grand old time and your event/arena horse will join in and get all worked up. I rode an entire training ride with one event rider on an excited TB whose rider was freaked out at the behavior of all those d#!* Arabs. Hee, hee. Whoops, sorry. We had to drop behind everyone and let her horse settle.

Train for this! You need to find other people to ride with at good forward trots and canter/gallops. I’m talking about the mental conditioning. 2-3 other horses is good, people who will all work at training games. If your horse makes you nervous DO NOT count on just riding at the back and staying away from other horses.

I suggest that you try to volunteer at the Virginia Highlands ride in August down in SE VA, Ivanhoe, VA area. You will learn a lot, see a lot, talk to lots of people and can shop for trail tack too! Whats not to like?

Bonnie S.

[blazn]

Eddy’s Mom - you said you don’t like the conditioning protocol in Nancy Loving’s book - is there another book you would recommend?

And what about doing the “trail ride” offering at a recognized ride? Would that provide some good training for riding in company and/or help the horse get used to the event environment successfully?