Endurance.net article

I found an old article written by Merri on Endurance.net this week, quoted below with permission.

Merri wrote:

Here in the US (and Canada), Endurance IS fun. It is a family sport. It is a sport where you can choose a myriad of goals for yourself and your horse. You can ride 50 miles by yourself. You can ride 25 miles with a big group. You can ride 100 miles with your 5-year-old kid. You can ride with a Raven. You can ride 25 mile rides forever and never choose to ride further. You can ride only 100 mile rides. You can ride multi-day rides. You can ride just to see some spectacular country. You can ride to win rides in your region. You can ride just to finish and to accumulate miles for yourself or your horse. You can try to chip away at Dave Rabe's 53,000 miles (good luck with that!). You can ride almost 4000 miles in one season. You can ride one 25-mile ride a year or one every 10 years. We'll still say Hi and We're Glad To See You Again when you come back. You can aim to win the Tevis Cup and Haggin Cup in the same year. You can aim to make the US Team and represent your country in the World Equestrian Games. You can participate in endurance here however you want.

In most countries of the world (excepting Australia and Canada), you do not have those choices. In most countries of the world, endurance is not something one would call "fun." It is a business, and your goal must be to win. You don't get 12 hours to complete a 50 mile ride and you don't get 24 hours to complete a 100 mile ride. You can count the number of multi-day rides in all the other countries combined on your toes. You don't have horses who regularly go 10,000 miles, or 5000 miles, or even 3000 miles. They are lucky to go 3 years, and then it's always fast.

In the US we don't care what you wear or if your horse is brushed or if you wear a 3/4 inch heel on your polished boot, or if you have a collared shirt on (unless you choose that option, which is a choice you have here!). When it comes down to it, we really don't care what distance you prefer to ride, or if you don't move up to longer distances, and we don't really care how many miles you have. As long as you just ride. And if you can't ride any more, you're still an Endurance rider. Endurance as a whole is not as snooty and pretentious as other horse sports, mostly because we aren't all trying to win and we have so many different goals we can aim to accomplish. It's really about the horse, and horsemanship, and it's about FUN. And if it's not about fun for you, that's also your choice, here in the US.

***

I'm sure there are nuances I didn't catch (collars?) but I got most of it. If you don't know, Merri travels the world photographing, participating, and documenting endurance, how they do it outside the US. She knows what she's talking about cuz she's done it. I met her while crewing FEI (which is of course something else). I've crewed twice in Europe and just observed another time.

Her article made me re-examine what I think makes endurance fun, and prioritize my answers.

1. It is fun because you spend an entire day on a beloved horse. Mile after mile builds the relationship. It's grueling but the horses seem to love it, its euphoric to feel how much they love this job.

2. The environment. You get to spend that entire day in amazing, far off places with no cell phone reception, and often it's just you and your horse as far as the eye can see, which is very far in places with no trees. The shared solitude is sometimes terrifying but creates blissful togetherness.

3. The camping. I love camping and never want to do it again if my horse is not there. Part of the fun is the community, the people who share their food and coffee and give you what you forgot to bring (hay when your hay runs out). The community is wonderful, but I loved the adventure of getting myself to the ride all alone, just me and my horse. Setting up my little camp, making a fire, cooking in my horse trailer, with my horse observing (and lying down by my fire) makes my top three for why endurance is fun.

4. The competition. If I can beat Cowan at either endurance or CMO, I'm good. JK. Sort of.

I need to change 1 and 2 to 1A and 1B, because they are inseparable in my mind. Cuz spending 8 hours on a beloved horse in a not-so-nice environment would change the sport into something I wouldn't want to do.

Such as the environment here in Germany and the Netherlands. This part of Europe does not have enough open spaces, so you are riding through towns and often sharing the road with cars, not just the ones following the horses as crew (another topic altogether: the intense crewing that Europeans are so good at, and proud of).

Is it fun? If you've never ridden anywhere else, probably.

What about 3? You can, technically camp with your horse at the horse trailer if you like, they won't prohibit you from sleeping in your car or tent. But since most rides are hosted from riding stables, most horses stay in a stall, and the riders can go to a hotel or B&B.

I suppose I'd feel just as competitive here as I did back home, so 4 wouldn't change.

There is an endurance ride not too far from here, but looking at it, I have no desire to ride it. Flat, traffic, and in the middle of civilization. Here's a video of that ride. 34KM=21miles. Looking at their website, I found it interesting to read the rule: For the welfare of the horses it is not allowed to tie them to your trailer at any time.


I've seen videos from rides in Germany where the people really do look like they're having fun. I've included them below.

There are mountain rides in France and Belgium, so that's something.

All this time I've had it in the back of my mind that I would give endurance a try in Germany.  I finally might have a horse to do it with. And if and when he's ready, I would do my best to reach out and find an endurance rider willing to come get me and my horse and take us to a ride.

It's just, well, after reading Merri's article, it suddenly became less important to try.

So for now, I'm letting it go.

I found a few videos from German rides, and I did not search for them in any special way, these are simply the first results I got when I searched for "endurance ride" in German. Due to that, I can assume they are typical for Germany's non-FEI rides.

***


Here's another ride in my region. Again flat, and in-town. Hey, where are the Arabians?  This vid is cute cuz it tries to show the entire experience of doing endurance:




This one shows some car crewing and you'll see those crap buckets everyone uses here, and dressage saddles. The interesting thing about this ride is it's only open to riders over the age of 40. WTH! Remember what Merri said?




This one has a very long intro showing ride camp, and seems to have a staggered start:





I'm hoping these people get off pavement a little bit:





Fun music, but doesn't look like a fun place to ride. At about 8 minutes in you see a pulse check. With the riders mounted. I've never seen that before. And look, more dressage saddles!  They look like they're having fun in the world's most boring landscape.  It's a 15 mile ride:




This last video is really well done - it's a lady's first endurance ride, 19 miles, on a beautiful Arabian, in a dressage saddle. The entire hold the horse was put in a stall in a barn, my mind is blown! (Actually the horse stayed the weekend in the stall.)  At the finish line I'm like, "When are you gonna get off the horse!" cuz you see her getting car-crewed a few times and for those, the riders always stay mounted. She seems to have done the entire ride alone:

(Update: Even though the music is really cool, you might want to turn off the volume cuz this lady has the most irritating case of "Uptalk" I've ever heard.)



Fun? Depends.