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[RC] Standardbreds and Part Standardbreds in Endurance - Carolyn Burgess

This thread has been really wonderful.  Lots of
experienced endurance riders commenting on what a nice
breed the Standardbred is.  My guy is a pure
Standardbred, competes in 50 mile rides, and is a
middle of the pack finisher.  His last endurance ride
was the FairHill International where he finished 16th
overall (7th in our weight division).  This ride had
alot of pulls for lameness and my guy trucked right on
through the finish, pushing two riders in front of us
over the finish line, faster than they really wanted
to go.  And I screwed up and he did an extra six miles
on top of the 50.  

There is nothing unique about this horse as
Standardbreds go.  He is about 15.3H and around 1,100
lbs. He raced until he was 10 and came off the track
sound. He is a little big for an endurance horse, but
very typical for the size and body type of a
Standardbred.  He is not lightly muscled like an Arab,
nor is he bulky like a QH, but somewhere in between. 
And he does well, but will never be a front runner,
but we are happy to be in the middle of the pack.  He
has done both endurance (200 miles) and competitive
trail in ECTRA (200 miles).  The reason he is not a
front runner is not because he is a Standardbred, but
because of the type of horse he is.  He is just a
little too big to be able to get rid of heat quickly. 
But that doesn't mean that a Standardbred a little
smaller and with a little lighter muscle wouldn't be a
front runner.

I just got an email that from someone that said that
he thought that crosses might be OK, but a straight
Standardbred would never do well.  I think my guy
disproves this theory.

The one thing that I hope comes out of this discussion
is that Arabs are not the only horse that you can
compete with and do well.  Part of the reason that
Arabs do so well in this sport is because there are so
bloody many of them competing.  If you want to get a
feel for this, go to the AERC website and look at the
breed statistics.  Something like 95% of the horses
that compete in AERC rides are Arabs or 1/2 Arabs.  If
there were that many Standardbreds, or Thoroughbreds,
or Saddlebreds, or Tennessee Walkers competing in this
sport, you'd see alot of those as top finishers. 

Please don't forget that, "To finish is to win" and I
have 4 - 50 mile completions so far with this horse. 
I went looking specifically for this breed of horse,
found the best mount I could, broke him to saddle,
trained him to ride and compete in this sport. 
Whether anyone else feels like this horse is meant to
compete in this arena is their issue.  I feel like a
big winner.

Carolyn Burgess

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