Re: What is an endurance horse?

["Tamara Jane Habberley" <tamarahabberley@lineone.net>]

I live in Birmingham UK, which is the second bigest city in England. I keep my horse about 8 miles from the town center in a funny bit of shrinking green belt ( ie. supposeldy protected from building on the fields yet two best close open riding spaces have just been granted planning permission). Very lucky to manage to keep a horse in this area and box up to a local 300 acre park to keep him fit at the weekends.

 

Personally whilst I would agree that a purpose bred enduracne horse should theroetically do better there are plenty that get no where and yet on paper and confirmation wise they are ideal. In fact the same goes for TBs. I went to newmarket last friday to the national horse racing museum and belive me when you talk to the people there the attrition rate for failed TBs in training is horrendous.

 

Either way I feel its a somewhat academic argument as most people I know start with a horse they bought for other sports/leisure get hooked on endurance and then see how it goes. Theres few rich enough/hard hearted enough to discard a well loved friend to 'upgrade'.

 

Having said all that there are certain blood lines over here which are proving themselves as consistent Er producers Tarim (a top Er horse in his on right) by Luachim who was by Achim, some of the polish /Belka line horses bred by Bidissden Stud and a line called the Y line . Just to prove I can be sad about pedigrees!

 

 I take my metaphorical hat of though to any horse breeder aiming to produce a performance horse though, as if the USA is anything like the Uk its nigh on impossible for them to recoup even a fraction of the costs involved and many 'ideal' purchasers turn out to be complete jerks.

 

Tamara 

 

 

----- Original Message -----

From: Lif Strand

To: Ridecamp

Sent: Monday, April 24, 2000 3:38 PM

Subject: RC: What is an endurance horse?

Tamara wrote:

Personally, and within reason, I dont think its the horses type/pedigree/cost that matters its its guts and heart that counts and I guess you can only test that by the suck it and see method!

I like that - "suck it and see method"!!  Tamara, sorry I'm not sure where you live, could you fill me in? 

Using the Ididerod dogsled race as an example, one can see that almost any breed can compete (Paul heard of someone with a team of Dalmation crosses), however certain breeds predominate because they were bred to do long distances like that *and the odds are that those dog teams will do well at the job*.  Looking at thoroughbred racing, one sees that certain bloodlines predominate because they win more and again, people choose them because the odds are better for winning with those bloodlines.  You start with something someone has already shown does the job and try to improve on that.    Why reinvent the wheel?

The issue here is not how many horses are winners because they break the mold (e.g. draft crosses, free, rescue or whatever horses doing well in endurance "in spite of..."), but what is the mold from which they are breaking?  And how can that be improved?  Lif

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