Another German endurance ride

Today I drove a gazillion kilometers to an endurance ride to see what it's like to ride non-FEI here in our state. When I got there I was very far north on the border of Lower Saxony. Not that 2.5 hours is far to travel for an endurance ride, it's just strange to me that a country this tiny can take hours to traverse at around and sometimes exactly 100mph.

There is a nice website for this ride. It includes a link that displays a local newspaper featuring this ride. This is not a new ride. This is the autobahn right next to the ride - it says Amsterdam Osnabrueck.

It's a 30/60/80 km ride and drive. Hey - did you know that in Germany, endurance rides often involve driving? I think that would be fun in a way but it also speaks to the terrain they follow. The terrain is fast, flat, and often right through towns.

I'm soured on FEI rides in Germany - you all know this. They do not have the "endurance" aspect of the sport. It's a Tour de France with people and cars running all day behind your horse with your supplies, including water bottles - no need to carry one on your saddle. Cell phones connect riders with crew, no need to adjust your saddle blanket yourself. Crewing occurs often on "trail". The riders themselves do virtually nothing but ride the horse. Trot-outs, electrolyting, sponging, blanketing, feeding, rubbing the riders' feet is all done by crew. I was told by a crewmember, "You Americans have a real disadvantage when you move up to this level because you don't know how to organize a good crew - a crew where each member has a specific role and functions like a machine."

I had my hopes up that a local, small ride would be different.


This is the day parking area. It is used by riders who live locally and will not stay the night. I know it probably exists in America, but I have not seen personally a section for entrants who will not stay overnight.

I know this because I saw one lady there with her horse and I approached her immediately upon parking and asked if I could ask a few questions.

I asked her if people camp with their horses here. She said that some people do, others put their horses in the barn and go to a hotel.

All the rides I've been to in Europe are hosted by large riding stables, so there are stalls for the endurance horses at night. (In case you're wondering why she's all bundled up and her horse is naked - it was 76F out and balmy.)

But some people choose to camp with their horses. That's nice. I mean, to me, the whole weekend horse camping experience is integral to endurance. I never had a fancy rig, but I love sleeping a few feet away from my horse.

(In fact, the camping aspect is so important to me, it is slightly less painful for me to not be actually doing endurance now simply because my horse sleeps 40 meters from my own bed every night and greets me with a nicker every morning. When we first brought Baasha to Finally Farm I blogged about it like this: Horse Camping Every Day.)

I asked her if it's possible to do this ride without crew. She said, "Possible, yes, but no one does it."

OK then. *sigh*

I asked her where all the horses are. "Out on trail." I've never been to a ridecamp at about noon and seen no horses. OK, she was there, but she was pulled. And two other ladies were sponging their horses in the shade, also not continuing. That makes 3. That ridecamp had a vet check meant I should have been seeing more horses. Confusing. Perhaps there were not many horses, and perhaps not many distances were offered. She mentioned that it was "Only an 80 km ride" but I'm not sure if that means only 80 and under. I can't imagine a ride without an LD this early in the year. (Then again 80 Km is not quite 50 miles so..??) A vet and a pulser stood near us with nothing to do.

Here is the camping area. I did not wander over there because you can see it is a whole field away from the vetting area. Why so far? I was always annoyed when I had to park at the far end of ride camp and didn't make my times. It must be the intensive crewing thing that makes it unnecessary to go to your rig during holds.

One more aspect that was bewildering: This ride has Gr. and Kl. divisions. I asked her to specify this and she confirmed it but could not explain why on earth they have different divisions based on the size of the horse. I said, "We have weight divisions." (And that is controversial enough.)

Can anyone explain this to me? Why big horses and small horses would be divided? It looks like big means warmblood, TB, and small means Arab, Haflinger. (Guess I shoulda asked that vet...)

UPDATE: I just emailed the ride manager with my burning question: )

OK here's the top concern of mine. I had already read that this ride includes a lot of pavement. This is why the lady I spoke with was pulled: "Lame due to too much pavement" she said.

I get that, because this is Germany and I have to bend my mind around this concept.

But wait ....I asked to see the start line, pictured above. It was pavement. The finish? Same spot - paved. Do you see the blue sign? That means the start and finish of this ride is also a public trail open to hikers and bicyclists. Have you done an endurance ride and had to deal with baby strollers, roller bladers, bicycles, and dog walkers?

I remembered a ride in the PNW that started on pavement. They solved this problem by having a controlled start. They did not want horses slipping on pavement in the first strides and falling and maiming riders. They made us walk that first segment. From all my experiences riding horses in Germany, I seem to be the only one concerned about the risks of riding on pavement. I'm talking about safety risks from slipping and falling. Trotting on pavement is normal here; I've been told the horses are trained on it so it does not hurt them.

There's more. The vet check--IT'S PAVED TOO.


You gotta do your trot out on paving stones.

Unfathomably, immediately adjacent to the trot-out area is a sand riding arena. What huh? Did the vets not want to get thier feet sandy? (The FEI rides I attended used the sandy dressage rings to do their trot outs.)

I'm so torn. Can I change? Can I bend my expectations around the oddness? Does anyone actually get off their horse on paved areas and walk? Would I be overtime if I did that?

I spent a long time on my trip home thinking about these questions. It's not like I even have an endurance horse; I am thinking about the future and whether it's worth my while to pursue this.

There is a ride near Duesseldorf in August. I will go and see what the story is. That one is at least much closer.



It would be nice to see something hilly and not pancake flat.

It would be nice to see a vetting area and start/finish that are not paved.

I hate to think it's typical of our area. I guess I'll have to find out.