[RC] Standardbreds - Carolyn Burgess
I didn't search the archives before asking this, but here goes anyway. I
got a Standardbred last year on purpose, for doing endurance with. Once he
figures out how to be a saddle horse, I think he will be a fabulous 50 mile
horse, and maybe more. He is doing 25 mile CTR's now and is doing them very
well. 3 rides, 3 completions, 1 4th place and we don't know the placing of
the most recent ride yet. He has all of the foundations to be great, from
the training of a race horse.
When I originally came to this group about getting a Standardbred, the
people who ride other than Arabs were very supportive, all of the Arab
people were less than nice with the replies. The point of this is that
Steph rides Orlov Trotters and I did do some research on this, that the
Russians have a very nice horse in the Orlov Trotter. And there is demand
for them after they retire as they are very elegant carriage horses, but the
Russians are having a hard time keeping the breed pure because fast is the
name of the game in racing and nothing beats the American Standardbred. So
Steph, why did you choose them to do endurance on?
And my second question is, nobody here thinks that Steph is crazy, dumb or
anything else for using the Orlov's for endurance, and the Russians are
using American Standardbreds to "improve" the Orlov breed, why is a
Standardbred not considered a desirable breed for this sport? Let me tell
you more about my guy and maybe some of you will consider this breed. My
guy is 15.3H, about 1,100 lbs. He is lean and looks more like a combination
of a Morgan/Thoroughbred cross. He has beautiful, straight legs, and
wonderful big tough feet. He is very elegant looking and gets photographed
at rides all of the time, much to the chagrin of a friend of mine. His RHR
is in the high 20's, he has routinely plused to the mid-40's in 10 minutes
for P&R's at the hold, and is well below 40 in 20 minutes at the end of a
ride (CTR only to date). We have walked into holds at 60. His respiration
is often time hard to detect (less than 10 is common at the end of a ride).
He raced until he was 9 and was retired sound, he was just getting slow
(finishing 6th instead of 1st). Since no one wants these horses, you can
get them very, very cheap. I paid $1,200 for this lovely animal and over
$700 to vet him. The vet, a regular local endurance judge, though he could
be a 100 mile horse. He has a beautiful, floating, and HUGE trot. His slow
speed trot is around 12 mph, to go slower, he has to rack. His medium
speed, comfortable trot is around 18 mph, he has a trot at about 22 mph (all
of these were clocked on my GPS one day on a training ride. He has faster
trots than this but they are very uncomfortable to ride. He also paces. We
don't have a canter yet, but that is coming. He has learned his job very
well, drinks from every puddle he sees, and now that he understands that
this isn't racing, he does what I ask him to do. We still have "racy
moments" where he forgets what his job is, but a little word to him and he
gets back on track.
The biggest issue we have is balance. He spent 9 years carrying himself.
So he is still having trouble with a rider. And it takes time to re-educate
the body to go from carrying himself one way, to carrying himself in a
different way + a saddle and a rider, and hills and all of the other stuff.
So I have always wondered if the reason that Arabs do so well in this sport
is because there are so many Arabs, and Arabs are really the only breed that
have been bred to do this or are they really different and better at this
than other breeds (heavy muscled breeds excluded). BTW, if you go back
through the records, the Standardbred does have a smattering of Arab in
there.
Carolyn Burgess
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