Re: I'm Buying My First Endurance Horse

["Susan Garlinghouse" <suendavid@worldnet.att.net>]

> HELP!  I'm going to look at my first, bought for the purpose, endurance


Carolyn, you're getting better advice than I possibly could from better
qualified people than me about all the other aspects of picking a good
prospect, but I'll throw in the one requirement that IMO is often
overlooked.  Nancy Mitts and Heidi Sowards have already mentioned this, but
its worth repeating, that a good endurance horse has to EAT---anywhere,
anything, any time.  I can't tell you how many people I've talked to who
have some really wonderful horses that are perfect in every other way, but
because they either refuse to eat well on the trail and in camp, or are just
generally hard keepers, they've been prevented from doing nearly as well as
they would otherwise be capable of.  the old adage "an army travels on its
stomach" is never more true than when applied to endurance horses.

The trick, however, is in deciding to what extent this applies to the horses
you're considering.  Some horses just haven't been fed well, or enough,
either for maintenance or during conditioning.  Some might need to be wormed
(and if the parasite program hasn't been kept up, consider that permanant
damage to the intestinal mucosa may exist, which may affect the long term
efficiency of the system to extract nutrients).  You've already noticed that
there are plenty of people selling "endurance" horses that have no real clue
of what a good endurance horse is.  It might be that an intially
don't-wanna-eat horse will learn his job and really start taking care of
himself after gaining some experience.  It might be he just needs to be
supplied with the right types of food, and plenty of it.  But it might also
be that even given the best of feed, a horse is just a hard keeper, or just
won't eat enough to fuel the work load.  I absolutely disagree that "all
Arabs are hard keepers."  My ass, they are, and although I know you're
looking at Standardbreds, people might try to convince of that about SBs and
it's just as untrue.  There's a range within every breed, and exceptions to
every rule, but *most* horses should be able to eat enough to maintain a
good weight under all but the most extreme workload, and a reasonable number
that will gain weight eating dirt.  All other things being equal, if you had
to choose between two prospects, pick the one that has no trouble
maintaining weight, is ALWAYS interesting in stuffing his face, eats his
fool head off any where and any place, and is a royal PITA dragging you off
towards patches of grass or any feed tub within visual range.

Good luck finding your perfect horse. :-)

Susan G