I’m interested in going trail riding on my 17.1h warmbloods. If you have large horses like that, what has been your biggest issue?
I took my now 10yo WB on trails when he was 3-4, and back then he was about 16hh. He was great then, and since he’s done dressage, H/j and eventing, but we haven’t been to trails in all this time.
And on a side note, do WB compete in endurance?
the bigeest issue I have had with the larger horses on trails is getting my knees
scraped between trees.
I have never heard of a warmblood competing in endurance;that sport seems to be dominated by the lithe Arabians.
I didn’t think so either, but was just curious. Endurance isn’t going to be my big guys next sport 
Warmbloods are not bred for endurance. They are bred to jump and to piaffe(dressage). They are fine on trails. Just stay on because sometimes it is hard to get back up in an english saddle if you dismount. We always look for logs and stumps and things that can be used as a mounting block. Trail riding is good for warmbloods to get them out of the ring and into the woods. It helps their minds. And to increase their endurance a little bit. The arab blood in most warmbloods is not enough to ensure that they could compete in endurance. You’d have to have the horse ambulance following your warmblood on any endurance trial.
warmbloods can do the lower endurance… they should have no problem doing 20 miles…
i know of several eventers that take their warmbloods~ on trails, some even do the 20 mile endurance events (like at GMHA) with no problem… it’s good for them, good for their brains to be out of the sandbox. good cross training too, for a fit athlete.
i have never had an issue taking a WB out on the trail… only complaint is with the taller ones sometimes the things that are easy to duck with the QHs is not so easy with the WB :lol:
Anything past 25 miles is almost all arabs with a few exceptions like mustangs, gaited horses, I think a TB did 100 milers. You could do 25 milers as long as you didn’t expect to be very fast and could very easily do the intro rides of about 15.
Competitive trail is also a lot of fun, shorter and slower, but gets you out camping and meeting people. Visit ACTHA for more info.
It is a matter of physics - more energy and strength required to carry a big bodied animal. WB’s take more conditioning, too.
My old dressage/jumping warmblood is now my trail horse, and has had no issue doing the intro endurance stuff, hopefully more in the future. It’s been incredibly good for his brain, and I think he’s actually in better condition now than he was when I was showing him. It helps that he is smaller and was bred more for speed, most people who don’t know him think he’s a large quarter horse. If I were to take my mom’s bigger, dressage-bred warmblood out, he might love it as well, but at a lower level for sure :lol:
Depends on the WB I guess…my sister’s WBs that she rides on trails and treks are Selle Français with a lot of TB or Anglo-Arab blood and they do just fine. Actually, her 18 yo SF was the horse in the best shape during the last trek we did. They are also not huge, around 16h, sure footed and not that bulky.
I really dislike riding a big horse on the trails. Makes everything more complicated (ducking low branches, negotiating narrow mountain trails, getting back on after opening gates, etc).
My best trail horse was my 14.3h Morgan mare;) Close second was my sister’s Icelandic.
Really depends on the type of trail and length of ride.
A 1-2 hour ride at your local state park with wide, mostly flat trails? No problem.
A 6 hour mountain ride? More difficult.
I trail rode my 17’1 warmblood a bunch, never longer than 4 hours. You aren’t going to want to get off or you may be in for a hike home unless you can mount from the ground or luck into a stump. I managed to never have to get off my horse but it is restricting knowing you are a bit stuck. You’ll have to watch for tall branches and be careful in tight quarters. I have had to find a different path because it was too overgrown and the tree trunks too close together for us to squeeze through.
But it’s so worth it! I love trail riding and always had a blast.
Iseem to recall a poster here that finished Tevis with a WB. There are a number of breeds doing endurance besides Arabs, particularly on 25s but even 50s and 100s. Anyone who is interested should definitely give it a try, start with the Intro rides or 25s, and ride conservatively. It is true that the heavier breeds are at a disadvantage but there is also not a whole lot of overlap in the riders interested in both dressage/h/j and endurance, so not so much crossover for that reason too.
Biggest problem is even if you are not first you are the one to get cobwebs in your face if you are daydreaming. 
I thought for the Atlantic Olympics they did a study on ability to withstand heat. Thin skinned horses with blood vessels closer to the skin had a distinct advantage in hot weather. Arabs and TBs were considered thinner skinned than WB.
The ability to expel heat is a factor in endurance.
well, that’s what I remember, I could be wrong.
Chall, the Atlanta heat and humidity at the Olympics was awful. And yes, it depends on the “warmblood” type… Since “warmblood” is a term used by so many for just about any TB cross, those which are “draft warmblood types” cannot handle the heat as well as those which don’t have draft blood. But this is not a hard and fast rule.
Warmbloods can have arab blood and TB blood. But many of the “warmbloods” in the USA are 1/2 TB and 1/2 any other breed. So it’s really hard to determine which horse will do well in endurance and eventing without knowing the whole breeding history of the horse. It’s confusing to see horses which are part connemara and part “TB” out of a supposedly TB mare who has no history, no tattoo and no papers, called “dutch warmblood” or another type of WB.
As the saying goes, “horses for courses.” TBs are best at eventing and arabians are best at endurance. With of course a good many exceptions to those rules.
It depends on your trails. Except for fire roads, most of our trails are narrow and going up/down a hill. The larger horses can’t ride, or at least struggle with the very narrow trails. My trail horses have always been under 15hh.
If most of your trails are wide and flat, you’ll be fine.
Some warmblood breed/types were created for distance work. The Trakkhener, Hanoverian, and some others were developed for European cavalry in the 17th-19th centuries. They were bred to carry a large load (250-300 lbs.) across 20-25 mile/day distances for several days in a row. Of course they were also created in the cool climate of Northern Europe. They might not do so well in the Carolina lowlands in summer.
If a modern warmblood is of this breeding, however, it might do better than one of later creation where the selection criteria did not include distance work.
Horses for courses is a Good Rule. Riding the horse under you is a Good Rule. Combine these rules and you’ve got the answer!!!
G.
You will hit spider webs and branches everyone else went under.
A heavy bodied model on huge feet will have a harder time than his light bodied cousin.
My son use to compete his Oldenburg mare (by Manhattan) at competitive trail events. They would log many miles (espceiall on mountain trails) getting ready and in competition but the only ‘time’ involved was completing obstacles and the course within a specific time, no race per se. They did very well. He was competing in the junior division at the time (at 6 feet tall).
I knew of a Hanoverian/TB cross in Germany who was competing and winning in the 100 mile events, he was around 16H
I did LD Endurance with my 16.3hh Trakehner. By the end of the season, he was well fit enough to do a 50 mile, but I went back to jumping instead of pursuing Endurance. We finished 5 25 mile rides, 4 with all “As” for condition. On the first one, he scored a “B” for hydration, and we started using electrolytes for the next rides. He doesn’t drink enough on the rides or in camp without them.
He’s also done all-day rides in the mountains (5 days in a row), we’re talking solid 8 hour days. He’s good for it, but I only take him when I KNOW he’s conditioned for it.
He is…“fun” to mount from the ground, but I’m fairly tall. It really hasn’t been that big a deal. I jump on and off a lot when conditioning. Well, I did. This was all before baby/pregnancy.
Some issues I’ve had with my guy:
He has garbage feet compared to, well, ANY Arabian or Arab cross I’ve ever met. Bruises and abcesses. Flat, thin soles. My farrier had to pull out a lot of tricks to help build up to distance. We ended up with a leather pads, equipack, and shoes. By the end of the season, we were able to drop the equipack. Manageable, but doing Endurance work sure demonstrated this weakness. There is absolutely no way I could keep this horse sound over distance without shoes. He’d wear his hooves to nubs.
I had to condition more carefully than with a horse bred for it. At the low levels, you can get away with a lot if your horse has strong natural endurance tendencies. Just my very humble opinion…but a hardy, smaller, more “typical” Endurance type doesn’t need to be conditioned that carefully to finish a fast 25 mile. My big Trakehner did. I had to pay close attention to his pace, even at that distance, or we wouldn’t have pulsed down and gotten good condition scores. He stays hotter/higher longer. His muscles take more energy and make more heat.
His natural movement tendencies are not necessarily “efficient.” My horse is built to sit pretty deep and OVERTRACK. The pace I settled on for Endurance rides is a lot flatter and longer than what I’d want in, say, a working trot for a Dressage test. I still need him to engage his back too and carry me, but not sit so much and not drive under so much with his hinds. Again, not a huge problem, but something to consider.
The trails get cleared to a much lower height than I’m sitting!
He turned out to have some heart after all! Shocker, if you’ve met this horse. He’s kind of a dog about work, generally, and won’t speed up to beat another horse to grain in the pasture. When I took him out with the crowd in our second start, he was ON FIRE. Since pace was so important, I ended up not being able to start with the leaders after that. As long as he couldn’t see them, he’d hold to the pace I set…but if he COULD, he worked himself right up and wanted to race.
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